As fears of coronavirus grow in U.S., local communities combat discrimination

Chinatowns across the country face revenue losses following the coronavirus outbreak. Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood on March 1. (Photo Credit: Adv. Reporting Times’ Ashlyn Peter)

 

WASHINGTON—As the U.S. prepares for the spread of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, local governments and individuals are launching campaigns to combat fear and discrimination of Asian-American communities.

 

Chinese-owned businesses across the U.S. have suffered losses in revenue since before the first coronavirus case was reported in the country. Now that widespread transmission of the contagious virus seems a likely reality, local government officials find it necessary to encourage the public to avoid misinformation that could lead to fearmongering.

 

A “Show Some Love to Chinatown” campaign has helped businesses in the area since its Valentine’s Day launch, Gregg Bishop, the commissioner of the department of small business services for the New York City government, said in a phone interview. Bishop’s department heard from Chinese-owned businesses that there was a 40 percent drop in foot traffic, and the campaign has since stabilized the decline.

 

The campaign also introduced a raffle in which individuals can enter if they present a receipt from a Chinatown restaurant or shop, Bishop said. The N.Y.C. effort will continue throughout the month “to encourage people to come out and shop in the boundaries of this business improvement district,” Bishop said.

 

“Any one extra person that we can encourage to come down here is one extra income that the local merchant will deeply appreciate,” Wellington Chen, the executive director of the Chinatown partnership in N.Y.C., said. Chen created the Show Some Love to Chinatown campaign in accordance with Bishop.

 

Across the country in Los Angeles, government officials say that they want to minimize the fear that has led not only to a similar drop in revenue of Chinese-owned restaurants, but also an attack of an Asian American teenager on February 11.

 

“The biggest problem right now is behaviors that are discriminatory and really destroy the very fabric of the diversity of L.A. county,” Barbara Ferrer, the director of public health for L.A. county, said in a phone interview. “Restaurants are half-empty because people have a lot of fear and a lot of misinformation.”

 

Ferrer said that Public Health Department supervisors continue to attend Chinatown events to reassure the public that it is safe to engage with the L.A. community. “We’ve actually made a big effort ourselves to patronize Chinese businesses and to stand with our Chinese friends and neighbors against discrimination,” Ferrer said. “All supervisors [of L.A. county departments] have been attending events in Chinatown and other communities associated with the Lunar New Year, and they have been photographed eating in Chinese restaurants.”

 

Ferrer said department officials have been vigilant about attending town halls and community meetings at places like public schools to prevent the spread of misinformation. Health experts continue to make themselves available on the department’s social media to answer the public’s questions and dispel fear.

 

Other cities have also acted in recent weeks to bring communities and their local governments together. In Boston, city officials organized a large dim-sum brunch on February 15 for residents in the area.  Hundreds of Bostonians came together at a local Chinese restaurant to combat the owner’s reported 80 percent drop in business.

 

Boston’s WCVB wrote that the brunch communicated that people could eat in public spaces together without fear of transmission. Other Chinese restaurant owners were at the event to engage with residents and assure them that they would keep workers home for two weeks if they recently traveled to China.

 

Government leaders are not the only ones organizing events to support Chinatowns: throughout the country; grassroot efforts have materialized as well. Chicagoan Carlos Matias recently led a restaurant tour through the city’s Chinatown after scheduling the event on a Facebook page, The Chicago Tribune reported. Matias said in the article that he has frequented the area since he was a child, and he wanted to support the businesses of owners he now considers friends.

 

This effort comes after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot attended the Chinese Lunar New Year parade and government departments launched their own marketing campaigns to funnel business back into the area. They modeled their efforts off of the Show Some Love to Chinatown campaign in N.Y.C.

 

Washington, D.C. has not begun a campaign, but Mayor Muriel Bowser addressed concerns of discrimination in a press release on Thursday. “Communicating the facts that viruses do not target specific racial or ethnic groups and how COVID-19 actually spreads can help stop stigma,” Bowser wrote. “Stigma hurts everyone by creating more fear or anger towards ordinary people instead of the disease that is causing the problem.”

 

College campuses in D.C. were quick to spread that message to their students and staff members. American University informed its students via email on February 26 that the International Student and Scholar Services “has reached out to students from those countries [with high cases of the coronavirus] to check on them and provide support.” AU’s student body includes over 1,000 international students from China. “Support our fellow Eagles as they may be struggling with this difficult situation,” AU’s email said.

 

Public fear is not the only factor for the drop in business at Chinese restaurants and shops. Many cities often experience fewer tourists in the early months of the year, and fewer Asian tourists visited the U.S. for Lunar New Year celebrations than in previous years due to the virus outbreak.

 

“My concern is that if the irrational behavior continues for an extended period of time, we might see some hyperlocal economic challenges,” Bishop said in regard to how smaller communities could be impacted. “But I have full confidence that once the facts are out and people understand what the virus is, we will start seeing an uptick in consumers who will start patronizing these businesses.”