Thread by @AnnieTangent

How am I? I realize, NOT OK.

I realized just a few minutes ago I'm being hit with a lot of waves right now I hadn't put together in my head:

I'm a
Chinese Asian American
elementary special ed teacher of students of color
living in Chinatown
NYC
the #COVID19 epicenter

AHH 1/

Being Chinese Asian American right now, I've heard stories from all my Asian friends about how people look at them suspiciously now, they're, we're afraid to go outside. My friend just told me her dad was going to a bakery one day late March when someone kicked his leg down.. 2/

...told him he, a Chinese American man, was the cause of #COVID19. Limping, my friend's dad had to run into the bakery to hide from this man, call my friend who finally called 911 from miles away, 30 minutes after the incident, and the guy had run off already. 3/

It sucks being East Asian American right now, that's for sure. Before that was the indirect racism of us being afraid to speak up, we were supposed to follow the American Dream, make ourselves invisible, thx for "Minor Feelings," @cathyparkhong & making me feel less crazy. 4/

With today, reading from someone else's Twitter that my cousin Vincent Chin would have been 65 today had he not also been in the wrong period of time, 1982, in an economic depression supposedly caused by people who look East Asian, woof, it is hard to not be emotional today. 5/

So then to try to talk about coronavirus with that context? Just, wow. It's funny, I was in defense mode already in January, way before my hometown/home Chinatown lost 2+ months of business BEFORE NYC shut down and knowing my Chinatown may never recover from this disaster... 6/

I knew early January about #COVID19 cuz I'm super sensitive to China-US relations as a Chinese Asian American. I started to teach about the coronavirus to my students mid-Jan. When they'd say "WOAH THAT'S BAD" it made me feel validated in my feelings that this was gonna go bad 7/

As I taught about the ways #COVID19 spread during and after the Lunar New Year in China, about Wuhan and other quarantines, showed photos of the empty streets early February, my students were awed, comparing Chinese streets to "Resident Evil." I hoped it wouldn't happen here. 8/

I was bracing myself & my students, almost, for what was to come. In my 8 years teaching so far, that is the best gift I gave to students- a 2-month course in what #COVID19 looked like in other countries, so they would be ready...? But who's ever ready for something like this? 9/

And knowing the history of lynchings and concentration camps and xenophobia in America to people of color, anyone who's "other," it's an automatic reflex to be in defense mode. I've BEEN in defense mode. SO MANY Americans are ALWAYS in defense mode. IT'S EXHAUSTING. 10/

Chinatown, where I live, my hometown, is the latest location of that xenophobia. Today I went out to buy things from a kitchen supply store, Chinese 99 cent convenience store that opened today, if just for a few hours. I WAS SO HAPPY. But I know they might close soon forever. 11/

I went home & tried to give feedback to students on their #remotelearning, but wow, am I just so low energy. Then Melanie from @caaav delivered something to a Chinatown tenant and we 6-foot-distance saw each other!! She said she felt purposeful... I realized I just didn't. 12/

People really, REALLY want schools to reopen as soon as we can, while NY State grows in child cases of coronavirus & we have NO idea how #COVID19 is affecting those children. They want teachers and students and families to risk their lives...millions of lives in NYC? I just...13/

I've written separately about all of the things I am and do in the past 2 months. First was how #COVID19 is affecting Chinatown so badly for @labornotes: "It’s devastating. My Chinatown will never be the same after this." labornotes.org/blogs/2020/04/… 14/

Then I spoke as a teacher on how #remotelearning is not equitable and working for myself and for my students of color with disabilities and language needs: “I can’t be the special education teacher that I need to be for them—it’s just not possible.” newrepublic.com/article/157601… 15/

Then #AsianAmPBS came out last week, & I talked about my cousin Vincent Chin's murder, how great-aunt Lily Chin made sure #VincentChin's story was known and started that Asian American movement. Hate crimes are prosecuted diff. cuz of my great auntie. pbs.org/video/it-remin… 16/

But I didn't think to combine all these intersections of identity together & put them in the context of #COVID19, where I'm being hit at all fronts as a

-Chinese Asian American
-teacher of kids of color
-in NYC
-living in Chinatown, my hometown.

WOW that's a lot. 17/

No wonder I've been feeling crappy.

And it was only @soloyochapin's prodding to write a story about how the coronavirus has hit me that made me realize all of that intersection of #COVID19.

Wow.

We all have a story to tell, don't we?

18/

And just to say, my friends, students, coworkers, and everyone in my family are healthy and safe, to my knowledge, but so many friends, students, have lost fathers, mothers, grandparents, cousins. It's unfathomable.

As a NYCer I just wait for the day someone I know passes. 19/

And I am employed, so I've been throwing a lot of money to the small businesses in Chinatown and to fundraisers that directly support NYC ppl. One is tinyurl.com/CAAAVfund for @caaav Asian Tenants Union for housing justice in Chinatown & Asian immigrant communities in NYC 20/

Another fundraiser is from Welcome to Chiantown gofundme.com/f/welcome-to-c… where Chinatown restaurants get much-needed money to restaurant workers who make meals and donate them to essential workers throughout the city. My nurse friend says she and her hospital are so thankful. 21/

Here's another for @AAFE1974's Chinatown emergency small business relief fund: dumplingsagainsthate.com "only about 15% of more than 270 eateries are still operating... grassroots funds like ours are even more crucial to their livelihoods." 22/

And finally, here's a list of all the takeout and delivery restaurants in Chinatown, updated daily: airtable.com/shrHnwJcyTgBEg…

And a list of Chinatown supermarkets still open: airtable.com/shrxxUF9pc0uIr…

23/

As a teacher, as a Chinese daughter, as a Chinese Asian American, as a woman, as a New Yorker from Chinatown, I think all my identities have pushed me to help others, always, and now those identities have me feeling helpless during #COVID19. But that's not true. And... 24/

Maybe I stop feeling the weight of the world is on me. I have given my time, love, energy, voice, writing, money, resources to my students, family, friends, fundraisers, local Chinatown businesses. I alone cannot stop the cruelty- all of us have to do the work right now. 25/

I have to give myself permission- as a teacher, daughter, Chinese Asian American, woman, NYCer, Chinatown resident, to breathe and be human. Drink water. Maybe even go to bed tonight. The waves are hitting in all directions. I gotta find my footing so they don't drown me. 26/26