My Asian wife’s pride in being Canadian was scarred during the Pandemic

I’m a white man that was lucky enough to be born Canadian.

I do not use the word “lucky” lightly as being born into a country that is known throughout the world as a place of freedom and refuge is truly like winning the lottery.

There are much worse places and circumstances on this planet that children are born into every day. Places where children are born as war and cruelty rage around them. Places where a child’s gender or the colour of their skin will dictate their place in that society or even their worth as a person.

Yes I was lucky; Lucky that I have never experienced the ravages of war or the sting of racism in my life. Being born into a multicultural society I have never felt less than or more than my neighbours or fellow Canadians. I am not saying I have never seen racism, unkindness or cruelty in my life because I have. It just seemed that in my younger formative years these things were so far from the norm that they didn’t stick to me as they do today. Today things feel different.

Growing up on the east coast of Canada with the Atlantic Ocean as my backyard these dark parts of society were never, or very rarely, a part of my life. Yes, the vast majority of us looked like me but there were also lots of us that looked different or practiced a different religion than me. Some of us were Black or Asian or East Indian or Native but none of that mattered. To us we were just us. We were a group of kids growing up together that had more in common than not. The things we shared far outweighed what we didn’t, such as we were all free to pursue our dreams and none of us were financially wealthy.

To this day, over forty years later, I’m still in contact with several people from those early adult days.

My view of the world and my place in it started to change when I left my small town and moved to Canada’s biggest city, Toronto, in the late 1970’s. Those early days in Toronto were both an exciting and eye opening time for me.

It was the end of summer, 1977, when I boarded that plane in my small town on the east coast of Canada and three hours later debarked into a new world.

I remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, my feelings of awe and wonder as I walked through that airport. It looked as if every nation on earth were represented in the faces of the throngs of people scurrying this way and that way, rushing to make their flights or jump into the arms of loved ones.

As I walked from the arrivals area to the departure area, where I would be picked up, I witnessed many things that have stuck to me and are still with me to this day.

As I waited to be picked up I saw a young Black man hugging a middle-aged Black couple while not five feet from them a young Asian woman cried as she hugged a middle-aged Asian couple. It was clear to me that the younger people were saying goodbye to their respective parents, who would be boarding their flights soon.

I remember thinking that regardless of our differences, no matter what they may be, we are all the same. Be it our skin colour, ethnic background, body shape, age, gender, religious beliefs, education, immigrant status or sexual persuasion, we are all the same. We all feel the base emotions that make us human.

We all laugh, cry, worry, grieve and above all else, Love.

I smiled as I watched the parents hug their children and then each other’s child before walking through screening as the young couple held each other tight and waved goodbye to their parents.

More than forty years have passed since that day but I can still see the faces of that young couple in my mind. That is how strong an impact that moment has had on my life.

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But then the pandemic hit and I watched as society tumbled into something completely different.

The flames of fear, anger and ignorance reared its ugly head, fanned by social media and the stupidity of some world leaders. Leaders that at some times refused to listen to the advice of their own experts.

Quickly, these flames spread through society, much like the virus we were fighting, and took on a life of its own.

Blame and finger pointing seemed to become more important, too many, than actually doing the things, put forward by our medical experts, that would eventually stop the pandemic.

This type of finger pointing, when cast upon the backs of a single race, will always lead to the worst possible outcome–an outcome that has been proven time and again through human history.

It creates a virus unique to human society which is much harder and takes much longer to stop than corona-virus– Racism!

Imagine being verbally assaulted, in the worst possible way, just because you carry your families’ heritage on your face. I have never been attacked in this way, probably because I am a white male, but I am sure that there will be some among you that have.

My wife, who was born in China, moved to Canada to be with me over nineteen years ago.

Early in those years she became a Canadian and I remember that day as if it was yesterday. The joy and pride on her face, as she took that oath, will forever be etched in my memories.

But that pride, the pride of becoming a Canadian, was forever scarred by her experiences during the pandemic.

You see, my wife is a PSW (personnel support worker) working at a long term care home, taking care of the elderly. She has a warm heart and caring personality and feels things deeply. I can’t count how many times, over the years; I have found her in tears over losing a client that she had become attached to.

During the height of the pandemic I watched her every work morning as she dressed in her scrubs before tying a, freshly washed, bandanna in her hair and doing an at home virus test with fear in her eyes.

I remember asking her one morning, “Why do you keep doing this? I can see the fear you feel. Why don’t you just take some time off?”

She answered, “I can’t do that. We’re already short staffed. Three of my friends are off because the virus is in their home. Who will take care of the residents if we don’t?”

That statement should tell you who my wife and the vast majority of people that work in these homes are. They are, without a doubt, some of the most caring people I have met.

So it breaks my heart to relay to you now a few of the things, brought on by ignorance, which my wife and her friends have endured during the pandemic.

The first happened early on in the outbreak, when my wife stopped at the supermarket on her way home from work. She was standing in the produce section trying to select vegetables, wearing her scrubs and mask, when a young white man approached her and removed his mask before yelling at her– telling her to go back to her own country.

She was shocked and scared and tried backing away from him but he just kept yelling as he followed her. Luckily another white man stepped in and defended her before walking her to her car.

She wouldn’t go shopping for months after that without me by her side.

Several months passed and she started to feel safe again so began shopping on her own again. A couple of weeks went by with no problems until the day she called me at work, sounding panicked.

Some guy had walked up to her in the parking lot as she got out of her car and started calling her names– names I won’t give voice to here. Terrified, she ran to the store as he yelled at her while people passing by yelled at him. She said that when she got to the store, she turned back to see him kicking her car as he screamed obscenities in her direction.

My shop was less than five minutes from the store, so I told her to stay where she was as I was on my way and wanted her to point out this idiot to me. When I arrived and got her in the car, I drove around the whole area looking for this guy, with anger oozing from every pour in my body.

Luckily, we didn’t find him.

These events are just two of the worst times that this sort of thing happened but there were others, not as bad but just as scarring to my wife.

None of this is unique to my wife.

Several of her Asian co-workers have the same type of stories to tell. Even though none of them were physically assaulted, they all remember those attacks as if they were. I know in my heart that, maybe for a long time, they will all walk with a little fear in their hearts because of these memories.

These memories, that I spoke of above, have hurt me deeply but not as deeply as the one I am about to tell.

This time there was no assault, verbal or physical, but just the thoughts and fears in my wife’s words.

It was close to the end of the pandemic, when the Government announced that home test kits would now be available for free at several places, including pharmacies’, doctor’s offices and supermarkets.

As my wife is a PSW, she needed to do the test every couple of days.

I was surprised when she came home from work one day and asked me to go to the market and pick up some test kits. She would have driven right past the market on the way home, so I asked her why she didn’t stop on her way.

Her answer hurt me in ways she may never know.

With a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, she said,

“Please, can you just do it for me? I don’t want to go there. I don’t want people saying the dirty Chinese are taking all the test kits.”

Like I said before, her words on that day hurt me more than anything else that had happened during that time.

I knew at that moment, as I stared into the eyes of this beautiful caring woman– this woman that carried my heart in her hands– that she had been forever changed by this virus.

And by virus, I don’t mean Corona-Virus but the other virus I spoke of– Racism!

So, in closing, please think before you speak in anger. Please think about the ones you love before spreading this virus of hatred. Remember that your words have consequences and will live on long after they are spoken– maybe even long after your attitude and outlook have changed.