I cried for the victims of the Atlanta shooting. This sad time is also a moment of unprecedented awakening of political consciousness. In the extensive discussions on various Chinese-speaking social media, more people than ever are aware of the importance to actively participate in social efforts, aware of the impact of race, class, and gender factors on our community, and the necessity of support for social justice actions of other groups like BLM. Hopefully, people will create more social connections with what we have learned from this tragedy.
However, all the encounters are just beginning to be told and are still very difficult to be understood. I also think of myself, although I cannot compare my experience with those Atlanta victims. When I had to stay in the United States six years ago, I was grateful for the country that gave me a visa, and the universities here accepted me as a student. It is a pity that while I have never escaped the threats of the Chinese government and its agents, I have also suffered kinds of visible and invisible violence in the United States.
In January 2017, when I came to the registration site of the University at Albany, the staff who was looking for me there informed me that they had not processed my visa in time and suggested that I “go back to China and come back in September.” No one admitted that it was their fault. I flew to Mexico City urgently to apply for a visa and returned to the United States on the last day before the registration closed. This experience made me always remind myself in the following years that the system of this country could kick me out at any time, even if I did nothing wrong.
On an ordinary day in 2018, when I took a Lyft to the Albany train station, I found that the driver took the wrong way and I would miss the train due to his mistake. The driver started speeding while yelling at me, saying that I was the worst Chinese he had ever seen, and so on. Being locked in a speeding car with a furious man, I dared not say anything again. When arriving at the train station, the last sentence that the driver said to me was “get off my car.” An American friend wrote me a complaint, but Lyft’s only decision was not to let the driver and I match each other again.
On an ordinary day in 2020, I discussed my insurance with my dentist’s staff, who refused to accept my insurance information even though I repeatedly told her that my insurance might cover my expense there. In the process, that staff member constantly corrected my English: “We are not a clinic here; we are a dentist office.” Yes, dentist office. In the end, I lost $510 because she refused to accept my insurance. I can’t calculate how much money I have lost because people don’t listen to my incorrect English.
In early January 2021, I was hurt by my then date, a white American guy who claims to support the rights of minorities and immigrants and of course opposes police violence. When I told him that he should compensate for his behavior, he just went disappearing, no longer giving me any reply. When I knocked on his door to talk to him a few days later, he called the police to drive me away, even though he didn’t even have the guts to say “no” to me before the police arrived. Later that day, I went to the Albany police station to report my case. The response I got there was: “Do you really want to send your two-year boyfriend to jail?” “Why do you insist on sending him to jail even he had already apologized to you and said he was unintentional?” I had to leave the police station with a deep sense of systematic violence and collusion.
The above few examples of my experience are very common among Chinese students living in the U. S.. The only thing is that I still suffer from isolation as a Chinese dissident when I am physically living in the U. S. I cannot go back to China because I am not unwanted there. I maintain a temporary visa status here because I am ready to return to work in China at any time. To avoid surveillance by the Chinese government and its agents, I almost stopped speaking on public social media and deleted most of my past posts. I am alienated from many Chinese friends because I don’t want to talk to them through WeChat. Maintaining my visa status most cheaply, I live a few hours away from all my friends who cannot visit me amid the pandemic.
On the other hand, my experience is not so exceptional when many Chinese students I know are also struggling with daily discrimination and exclusion and are also burdened with entangled emotions and identities tieing with their “home country.” They are fearful and low-key Chinese dissidents, fragile outsiders not recognized by the U. S., and “inbetweeners” who are not understood by either side. The pandemic has deepened their vulnerability. They are living in a deep sense of insecurity caused by the “China virus” discourse, staying lonely in small rooms, facing visa crisis without knowing if they should and how to “go back to China”, a country that also regards them as carriers of the virus. My friends and I are not seeking the so-called “American Dream”, but a safe space where we can live as upright people. However, this seeking is always so difficult and even more difficult these days.
Proud to see that these friends are taking their torn and unrecognized identities to participate in the protest against the Atlanta shooting. I hope that more people can hear their and my stories.
