Gina Chong (Art Project) - Faces of my Community - Anti Asian Racism

DISCLAIMER: MATURE CONTENT - Contents from this video may be disturbing to watch and may not be suitable for children. This is my art and my passion project. You will see the faces of people in my own community. Some have experienced words of hate and racism and others want to share a call to action or their hope for a better future. I want to thank all the brave souls that were a part of this project. They all hold a special place in my heart. My story: On a warm evening in mid-April, my friend Tiffany and I went for a walk at Lafarge Park in Coquitlam, a suburb of Vancouver. We were stopped by a lady who asked us to take a photo of her using her phone. We said, sorry... we can't due to Covid and as we walked past her she went on a racist rant saying "You know this Covid is all because of you... you need to go back China. It came from your country". We both stopped in our tracks turned around and confronted her asking to repeat what she had just said. I was dumbfounded that anyone would have the audacity to speak those hateful words in such a crowded space. We managed to obtain some footage of her saying... it came from your country and a couple of other explicit words that I can’t repeat. As awful as the situation was for us, there was one bystander that spoke up and defended us by saying “Don’t be a racist... we all bleed the same”. It was unfortunate that this unprovoked verbal attack on us happened in my own community. This is the community where I was born and raised, where my senior parents live and also where my two little girls are being raised. I was hesitant to release the footage for fear of backlash, being overly sensitive, maybe petty for speaking out about something so minor. But after a conversation with Tiffany, we both agreed that it needed to be share and that night we posted it our facebook pages. Soon enough friends commented, some sent private messages and many even shared the post. By morning, I had text messages from local media wanting to do a story for the 6 o’clock news. It was an overwhelming few days with media interviews for TV and Radio and eventually the video went viral... I got calls from media in New York and friends from California messaging me to say that the coverage was on their new feeds. Only then did I know the gravity of the content I had posted. I never really did pay attention to the increase in Asian hate crimes in North America since the start of the pandemic last year and soon I realized that this was a much bigger issue than I could ever imagine. I now know that there is power in our stories and we shouldn’t suffer in silence. I know a lot of us Asians growing up in the West were brought up to stay silent, not to speak out, and don’t stir the pot... and this has the change. Whether its verbal abuse, workplace discrimination, vandalism, being coughed or spat on, or physical assault, we need to speak up and speak out, support one another and show our strength. My hope is that seniors are no longer fearful of going out for a walk or getting their groceries, or that their adult children don’t have to worry about them on a daily basis. I hope our younger generations are more vocal and speak up when they see an injustice. I hope that we all educate ourselves about the larger historical patterns of racism. I hope that allies will reach out the Asian community and support us in this fight to dismantle the roots of racism in Canada. I hope business owners and corporations will use this opportunity to address racism and Anti-Asian hate in the workplace. I hope people will open their pockets to support the elderly and raise funds for those who are injured due to a violent attack. And I hope that we can all be like that bystander in my situation that defended us and called out the racism. Let’s make progress and shine a light on this issue of Anti-Asian Hate. Thank you. Gina Chong