Blog Post #4 (p. 262-304): Tatum's Novel in Comparison to COVID-19 Outbreak

In this section of the book (p 262-304), Tatum addresses the historical and occasional current mistreatment of Native Americans, Asians, Muslims, and some other minorities. She mentions events such as the Chinese Exclusion Act (and later the Immigration Act), the 2016 executive order made by President Donald Trump that halted immigration from Muslim countries, and society's reaction to 9/11. For this blog post, I thought I'd try something a little different. Seeing that we are currently struggling with a pandemic, I thought it would be interesting to compare these events she discusses in this part of the book with how COVID-19 has affected the world today. Surprisingly, I have found some similarities and differences, despite the fact that some of these differences can be seen as similarities at first glance.

**************

The first section that I am going to compare the coronavirus to is when Tatum mentions the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and the 1924 Immigration Act. She briefly states how these acts reflect how "the anti-Chinese sentiment [had] culminated" at this point in time as a result of these immigration restrictions (p 270). Sadly, the Chinese Exclusion Act wasn't repealed until 1943 and the Immigration Act wasn't repealed until 1965.

In the past few months, the COVID-19 pandemic has grown even more out of control. Although, a few months prior to where we are now, our president had advocated for the halting of immigration from China as a way to prevent the virus from reaching the United States too rapidly. He wanted to take action as a way to protect American citizens from this very infectious disease.

That being said, since both address Chinese immigration, many would jump to the conclusion that the Chinese Exclusion Act and this action advocated by our president in 2020 would be considered a similarity. However, I disagree with that statement. About a month ago, I witnessed several of my peers express their opinion about President Trump's actions. They considered them to be racist in the sense that he wanted to put this restriction in place to deprive Chinese people the right to enter our country specifically because of their race. But that is far from the truth.

I do not believe that cutting off airlines and immigrants from China during a time like this is racist in the slightest. These actions should have been taken sooner as a way to blunt the impact of the virus in the United States. It has nothing to do with the fact that they're "discriminating against Chinese people," it's about the virus and what steps we need to take to avoid a disaster. While in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was put into place specifically to prevent anyone who was ethnically Chinese from entering the country just because of their race, which is the definition of racism.

Later in this same section, Tatum comments on how President "Donald Trump proposed a ban on Muslim immigrants" during his presidential campaign in 2016 (p 295). After being sworn into office, he "issued an executive order halting immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries." (p 295). Once again, several people viewed this as a racist act against Muslims around the globe. Several may compare his actions to the 1924 Immigration Act, which prevented immigration from Asia completely, and limited the number of immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere.

Once again, our president's actions are not as racist as the Immigration Act though it can still be seen as such by many people. Our president did this as a way to temporarily protect American citizens after numerous terrorist attacks. In both cases (2016 and 2020), our president has merely looked out for the well being and safety of the people of our country.

In relation to these terrorist attacks, on page 289 when Tatam introduces the fact that "the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, forever known as '9/11,' marked a turning point in how others looked at them [Muslims] and how they looked at themselves in the United States." After this event, many people were on edge around Muslim people, even if they were American citizens but still Muslim.

This is similar to how some people in our country have become skeptical of Chinese-Americans because of the COVID-19 outbreak, which originated in China. As we can see the similarity between 2001 and 2020, it reflects the idea that history repeats itself. I think that a major cause of the similarity between the 9/11 and coronavirus reaction (nearly twenty years apart), is the direct result of a psychological instinct that humans have.

When a crisis such as the COVID-19 epidemic breaks out in the world, the first reaction that humans have is to panic. Signs of this panic have been seen all over for the past month: bare shelves at supermarkets, empty public areas, and yes, discriminatory acts against Chinese people, although not all of these acts may be directly related to the coronavirus. The human instinct while in a panic is to immediately place blame, and therefore Chinese-Americans may have become the victims of numerous acts of hatred. It is true that this virus originated in China, but that does not justify the mistreatment of all ethnically Chinese people on this Earth or the fact that they should be treated as a scapegoat for these events.

When it comes to immigration and what our president has done to protect American citizens, the Chinese Exclusion Act and Immigration Act are not similar to President Trump's actions regarding immigration. These actions being both advocating to halt immigration from China as a way to prevent the virus from reaching the United States too rapidly in 2020, and the 2016 executive order made by the president halting immigration from Muslim countries. They may be related in the sense that in both 1882 and 2020, these immigration restrictions involved Chinese people. However, each of these actions were taken for very different reasons.

On the other hand, the treatment of Muslims in 2001 and the treatment of Chinese-Americans in 2020 can be seen as a similarity because of psychological human instincts.