I’m Helping My Korean-American Daughter Embrace Her Identity to Counter Racism

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In the summer of 2020, the Stop A.A.P.I. Hate Youth Campaign interviewed 990 Asian-American young adults across the United States about their experiences during the pandemic, and found that one in four had reported experiencing racism in some way.

Kids said that they had been bullied, physically harassed and had racial slurs shouted at them. Dr. Juliana Chen, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Mass General Brigham, said that kids who experience this kind of racism may stop going to school or speaking up in class. They might start acting out, feel unwell, have trouble sleeping or struggle with depression.

Tiffany Yip, a developmental psychologist at Fordham University, said that a child who hears a racist remark hears this: “You don’t belong. You’re other. You’re different.”

We are one of only a handful of Asian-American families in our school, which prides itself on teaching about inclusion. Earlier in the year, our daughter came home talking about Malala Yousafzai and Ruby Bridges, asking where we would have been sitting on the bus in times of segregation. Now I questioned what racial biases our progressive community might have held.

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Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The New York Times