The Importance of Eliminate the Prejudice against Chinese International Students
The community I personally perceive myself most clearly at this stage of my life is as a Chinese international student, who has been living in the United States for over 6 years. People from China and people from the U.S. will have different perceptions of my community. So perhaps sometimes people will wonder which perception can best and most accurately represent my community. As part of this community, I relate to the stories of Daniel Gao. Daniel Gao’s article argues that although Chinese international students are easily misunderstood and treated with prejudice due to the different cultural backgrounds and language barriers, such misunderstandings could potentially become severe, even though they still try their best to eliminate the prejudice by sharing his own stories and feelings.
As a matter of a fact, Chinese students make up the bulk of the international student population, which means China has largely stepped into the Western educational stage. However, the single story about the Chinese international community happens a lot in U.S. Harry Gao in his article “The Truth About Being a Chinese International Student” spoke up about some of the misrepresentations that the others used to think of us by telling a different version of story, coming from his own experience, and from other fellow Chinese international students. It is true that some of the Chinese students act as what they think they are, but as in any community there are people just like that. It’s important to look at the whole story with a more comprehensive perception, rather than through some long-ago books and television works created by the other communities and systems who are probably not that familiar with the truth.
Daniel Gao revealed the truth by illustrating the stereotypes and biases carried on the shoulders of Chinese students, titles such as bookworm, rich kids, and the invisibles. But where do all these come from? Beyond the domestics students, some university faculty and staff, those perceived stereotypes and discrimination are distributed subtly by many systemic powers in the Western countries, in this case, the Western education system. The system itself accepts us, but meanwhile the people in this system but from different communities don’t really know us. The intentions hiding behind these perceptions are worth thinking about. The main power of America is not willing to share too much further their resource, wealth, and power, because there are risks that, in the long term, the other communities will threaten the existing structure of the Western world. Therefore, to get their way, alienation seems like one way to exclude others, with the help of separation and debase.
It’s dangerous to neglect this kind of misinformation as they can misguide their receivers. All these misconceptions can turn into discrimination against us, against our community and bring some serious problems such as unequal treatment, spite, and even hate crime. We are all living under the situation of Covid-19, where all of us must stand together and try to make it through. Nonetheless, there are anti-Asian acts reported not just in America, but in other Western countries too such as UK, Australia. Even though I haven’t experienced any malice so far, because I live in Los Angeles, a city with a large Asian population, so the city is relatively friendly to Chinese international students, therefore, my case doesn’t stand for every Chinese student here or elsewhere around the world. During the outbreak of Covid-19, Asian Americans and international students have reported such as being spit on, yelled at, or even threatened in the streets. Looking back at these outbreaks of discrimination is a sobering lesson of the consequences of racial labels. We can even hear racist rhetoric by politicians like the former American president Donald Trump’s erroneous use of the term “China Virus” for Covid-19, being first step to racialize violence. Those fear-mongering terms serve the underlying political ends.
Chinese international students have faced many misunderstandings since the outbreak of COVID-19. First, we have been discriminated against by the “Chinese virus” stigma while overseas in the early stage of the pandemic. Second, we have been targeted in multiple ways by the anti-China politics triggered by the coronavirus. Trying to play the game of blame China for gaining votes, Trump implemented several anti-Chinese international education policies, such as banning some postgraduate-level Chinese students and researchers in advanced sciences and technology from entering the US. He and his government stopped granting visas to Chinese international students in chip-related majors to prevent China from developing its chip field. He accused them of stealing intellectual property from America and having links with the military of our own country. This policy was endorsed by some US Senators as “a targeted approach” to handle security threats from China. Although the trade war is a game between the two governments, it also affects Chinese students in the U.S. Not only us, but even our parents are worried that if the trade war keeps happening, it will eventually lead to another Cold War or even World War III.
From my point of view, the policymakers and the authority need to think carefully about the new dynamics of international education in terms of the huge market share of Chinese international students. Chinese students deserve to be treated fairly in their pursuit of quality education overseas and should not be treated as just patrons. We hope that more and more people would like to hear the voice of this large community. Despite the pressures we currently face, we will continue to engage in global connectivity and scholarly endeavor as we should.
