Dr. Crystal Zheng (‘10, MA ‘11), an infectious diseases physician at the Tulane University School of Medicine, reflects on practicing medicine during the pandemic and the racial prejudice that Asian American doctors, nurses, and patients have faced in these difficult times.

Even before the pandemic, Dr. Zheng observes:

“No matter my cultural identity or professional achievements, I am always shadowed by jokes about my eyes and questions like, ‘But where are you from from?’

In my first week as a medical intern, my supervising physician, also Asian American, overheard a patient refuse my care while calling me a racial slur. With a knowing hint of shared experience, he whispered, ‘You have to have thick skin to go into medicine.’

I now consider discrimination an occupational hazard for physicians-of-color. As a minority in this country, I quickly learned that ignoring racist microaggressions is an essential survival skill.”

Now, with the pandemic in full swing, she shares her concern about an increasing number of racist actions targeting Asians in the United States (which included a hate crime committed against two of her colleagues at Tulane):

COVID-19 has intensified my racialized experience as an Asian American. I have received taunts of “Coronavirus!” and been questioned about my infection status by Uber drivers. With President Trump fanning the flames of xenophobia by using the term, “the Chinese virus,” verbal and physical abuse towards Asian Americans have dramatically increased.

Nationwide, nearly 1,500 cases of discrimination towards Asian Americans have been reported in one month alone. Asian Americans have been abused on sidewalks, grocery stores, and subways. We have been denied services, yelled at, spat on, beaten, and stabbed. We have been discriminated against by our neighbors, our classmates, and even our COVID-19 patients. Like all healthcare workers on the frontlines, Asian American physicians and nurses worry about the risk of infection to ourselves and our families. Meanwhile, we simultaneously have to worry about a second and arguably more pernicious fear.

Read her article in full on New Orleans area’s first nonprofit, nonpartisan public-interest newsroom, The Lens:
I’m an infectious disease doctor and I’m afraid to go to work (and it’s not because of Coronavirus) (The Lens, May 5)

You can also read SAPAAC’s open letter to the White House about taking a stand to protect Asian Americans from coronavirus-related discrimination (SAPAAC.org, April 5)