"Go back to China"
Walking my dog with my partner near CSULA campus. A truck drove by and the driver shouted, “Go back to China” and drove off. We both gave him the middle finger.
"You brought the virus over"
I was walking my dog at the park and a man and a woman approached me. The woman stuck her face up close to my dog, approaching without asking for permission. I was not comfortable with her approaching as I had seen her earlier harassing an older man, and I did not know how my dog would react. She started to bow to me in a mocking way, and when I told her to not get any closer and to stop, she got aggressive with me. She said, "I know you're Chinese. I have heard about you. You brought the virus over." I yelled at her that that was racist and to leave me alone. As I started to walk away, she hurled more insults and said, "I'm going to shoot you! I'm going to shoot your dog" as well as threatened to call the police and accuse my dog of biting her to put my dog down. I yelled at her that she could not say those things and she charged at me; however, because of her current state, she fell flat on her face and her boyfriend pulled her back from progressing any further. I did not report this to the police at the time.
He said we should kill all the Chinese
I was working at Costco giving out product samples. An old man strolled his shopping cart up to my cart and ended up talking after he had his sample. He told me that the US should kill all the Chinese for what has happened due to the pandemic.
Followed at the grocery store
I was doing some grocery shopping after work when an elder gentleman casually remarked, "Blue tastes disgusting." As I couldn't quite hear him clearly the first time, I asked him again what he had said. He pointed toward my re-usable grocery tote and mentioned the "blue Gatorade flavor tastes disgusting." Strange. I was taken aback. My Gatorade bottles were buried in my tote and clearly not visible so I reasoned he must have been watching me shopping in the beverages aisle on the complete other side of the store, probably some 5-15 minutes ago. It seemed that he had to get the last word in as he approached me from the side two more times shortly after, mentioning all Asians still had their masks on, his opinion on the best flavors, and rising bottle prices due to inflation problems. I decided engaging wasn't worth the trouble and just said, "Thank you!" and smiled both times he re-approached. I wanted to finish shopping as soon as possible. I felt uncomfortable. Like I was being watched the rest of the grocery trip.
He coughed on me on purpose
I was shopping at Kroger. I was masked, and another customer coughed on me on purpose. It seemed really close to my face, so I turned around to see what was going on. He and another woman were walking away, laughing at the incident. I stayed in the produce area because I was sort of scared. And then when they left, I spoke to the store manager about the incident and asked him to check the security footage. The manager said he would check the security footage but would not do anything else. I just felt sort of humiliated and scared by the whole thing. I don’t know why someone would do that. It just seemed mean-spirited. I was clearly targeted because I was wearing a mask, and I sense that I was targeted due to being Asian.
“We don’t take immigrants”
As an undergraduate student, I would attend career fairs held at my university to find an internship/job. Many companies that come to these fairs are national labs/government agencies that require applicants to be US citizens. I was waiting to talk to a company representative for one such organization. The moment the agent was free, I stepped up to give my elevator pitch. However, before I could begin to speak, the man told me, “We don't take immigrants." I was taken aback, and all I could say was, "I'm not; I actually grew up in a city close to where your company is located." I went on to give my elevator pitch and try to have a conversation, but the experience left a bad taste in my mouth. I am a headscarf-wearing, brown-skinned South Asian woman. It is hard to tell whether the headscarf or the skin tone (or both) caused the man to assume my immigration status. How many national companies are making such assumptions and limiting the diversity and talent they can bring to their corporations?
Robbed of her peace of mind
My mother was robbed and attacked in broad daylight while waiting in line at the Bank of America ATM. There were many other bystanders, including the security, but no one came to her aid. She may have been targeted because she is an elderly Asian. She was choked, punched in the head, attacked down on the floor, and had her head smashed against the concrete floor. She is a very hardworking citizen. She was robbed of not only her money and purse, but of her peace of mind.
I felt trapped
I was in the parking lot at the grocery store and I was racially targeted. The car parked next to mine was parked in a way that wouldn't let me leave and when I asked if they could move their car a little, they started making racial comments and refused to move. I felt trapped and unsafe because of the racial commentary and tried to get the help of the store security, but they didn't help.
"Wrong country, motherf-ckers"
I was walking in my neighborhood with my family when a middle-aged male said, "Wrong country, motherf-ckers." He then pulled out of his parking spot and drove away while I pretended to ignore his comment and walked away.
Spat at and insulted
I’m a mixed-race woman. As I was walking towards the MUNI station in downtown SF, a homeless person staggered towards me and blocked my path. When I tried to sidestep and walk around him, he charged at me while calling me a racial slur, and then spat in my face and told me to go back where I came from.
Workplace harassment
At my workplace, I was called “b-tch” multiple times. My private legal info was shared to a public chat that has over a hundred members. Inappropriate jokes were made in front of me indicating me as a tech spy. I was complained about to other coworkers, causing them to be aggressive towards me. A former Asian employee of the team was called “crazy” and “weird” multiple times in front of many people. I was photoshopped onto an Asian chef's magazine profile to be made fun of. A colleague told me he was going to a Trump rally in a nearby town, even when I barely knew him. A colleague called me trashy and suggested me to transfer teams and threatened that if I share anything from our conversation he would be very ugly with me.
Walking on campus
I was walking on campus. I heard someone shout "ch-nk" out of a truck passing by.
"Oriental like the rug"
I was eating lunch at a hotel when I hear behind me, “You need to go back to your country, you’re carrying a disease.” I thought I misheard, I turned around and said excuse me. She repeated it. I was so shook it took me 5 min before I picked up the phone and recorded. Then she had the audacity to walk over and record me. She acted like it was really cute what happened, even denied and minimized what she said. I asked her again “I should go back to my country, right?” She says, “You should where they speak oriental perfectly... yeah, oriental like the rug” and laughed.
Smashed my coffee to the ground
I was walking by my office with a coworker and a man came out of nowhere and smashed the coffee I was holding to the ground and starting screaming at us—both unintelligible things and homophobic slurs.
"No one did anything"
I was in line at a fast food restaurant where a woman approached me from behind and punched me in the shoulder. She started yelling obscenities and asked me where I came from. I ran behind the front counter where the cashier let me stay to wait for the woman yelling at me to leave. Despite there being at least 10 other people in the store, no one did anything and we all waited for the woman to leave who was still yelling anti-Asian slurs at me. The cashier told me that the woman was a regular, but it still bothered me that no one did anything to intervene.