‘Go back to your country!’ Orange County college counselor tells Asian American family
The counselor has not yet been punished by her college
An Asian American man named Tony Kao says that he was taking a walk last week in his neighborhood in Long Beach, California with his wife and baby when a woman casually walked up to them on the sidewalk and told them to “go back to your country.”
Kao’s wife soon took out her cell phone and began filming, causing the woman to start walking away, leading to this exchange caught on tape:
Kao: “I want you to tell everybody why you told us to ‘go back to our country.’”
Woman: “You need to go back to your home country.”
Kao: “And what does that mean? I mean, it’s unbelievable at this time and state, when we’re both born and raised in the United States, and you told me to go back to our country?”
Woman: “I never voted. I never voted for you.”
On Thursday, Kao posted the clip to Facebook where it now has more than 500,000 views.
It turns out that the woman is Tarin Olson, a faculty member at Golden West College in nearby Huntington Beach in Orange County. According to the local Press Telegram, she has worked at the school since 1991 as a professor and counselor and is teaching four career-planning courses this semester.
On Saturday, Golden West released a brief statement, declaring that the college “does not condone or support” the comments made in the video and “believes in an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students.”
In comments underneath the post, a number of Facebook users expressed their dissatisfaction with the college’s initial response, calling for Olson to face serious consequences for her words. Here are just a few of those comments:
“I hope there are serious consequences for the GWC faculty member who was involved in making racist comments to an innocent American couple while taking a walk. Her comments were totally uncalled for and unnecessary. She certainly does not represent the values of your school and is clearly not inclusive and welcoming in any way. I am appalled that a college professor and mental health counselor would behave in such a manner.”
“Golden West College has a faculty member who at the very least espouses bigoted and biased beliefs — freely on the street. Her ability to evaluate and grade students from a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds is questionable; her ability to make sound decisions with respect to having hateful outbursts is a “bad look” for the college. You may want to reevaluate the college’s statement.”
“So any time a non Caucasian student of golden west college go up to this counselor for guidance, we can expect that Tarin Olson will be telling the student to go back to his/her country?”
“Great to know. Next order of business: are you going to do something that is in line with what you say you believe in?”
In a follow-up statement posted to Facebook on Monday, Golden West said that it expects all of its faculty members to adhere to its code of ethics and conduct themselves in a way that avoids “violations of public trust.”
The college added that it was in the process of “reviewing all internal policies and viable options for next actionable steps,” and implied that Olson would be asked to stay home this week in the meantime.
Once again, Facebook users were shocked that the school still hadn’t fired Olson for her comments:
“We do not anticipate the faculty member in question to be on campus this week” — How about EVER AGAIN? That sounds a little better. We are waiting for you to let us know when this will be the case. Until then, we are watching you like hawks, and are ready to arrive on campus any day in numbers.”
“Golden West College needs to take swift action. You’ve already fouled with your initial weak statement. You’re a public institution. The tax payers and community will not tolerate delays and poor leadership. How embarrassing that this individual remained on your faculty/staff for so many years while you touted commitment to diversity and inclusion. How many students were victimized by your lack of oversight? The only move is to terminate her. And now before the backlash gets worse.”
“Wow. Most companies and institutions wouldn’t spend this much time reflecting. Unbelievable that they have not taken action. Apparently this college is uncertain if racism is ok or not. Got it..”
This second statement came after Olson spoke to CBS2 News on Sunday, defending herself and claiming that her students know that she is not a racist.
“I feel my perspective will be twisted if discussing the skewed video which cut out part of the incident,” Olson said. “If you would like to have a full normal interview about the displacement of European-Americans then I gladly am available to enlighten the public.”
That same day, Kao made a second post on his own to Facebook, thanking people for all of their support, but clarifying that by posting the video he had no intention of “seeking out or besmirching the offender’s personal life or career.”
“It is our hope the offender is aware and apologetic for what she has said to us, but all we can do is hope,” Kao wrote. “Although my post was about something negative, the message we want to convey is POSITIVE and that is to be respectful to one another no matter of what race, creed, or color.”
“Please do not use my post to foster more feeling of anger or hatred because frankly there’s already enough of those feelings in this world.
In October 2016, a New York Times editor was walking down the sidewalk in Manhattan with his family when a woman shouted at them: “Go back to China! Go back to your fucking country!”
The incident caused the editor to write an open letter to the woman and to ask Asian Americans to tweet to him about their own encounters with racism in the US, hashtagging them “#thisis2016.”
