 connection and the connection to rising anti-Asian racist incidents. We are very glad that everybody is here. My name is Duncan McFarland. I am from the US-China People's Friendship Association, New England, which is one of the co-sponsoring organizations. The China Friendship Association, actually founded in 1974, is a people-to-people organization for understanding and cooperation. And you know, we think when the governments aren't getting along, the people need to step up. And it's vitally important for the US and China work together on issues such as peace, climate change and global health. The other co-sponsors tonight are Code Pink, Women for Peace, and the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. And the speakers can tell you more about their organizations if they so choose. The title of tonight's program is US foreign policy towards China and its impact on racism against Asians nationally and in Boston. Foreign policy and domestic issues are often separated in the public's mind, but they can be very connected in the lives of people such as in the Asian and Chinese American communities. So we will hear from a panel of three presenters, followed by some time for Q&A, and you can put your questions in the chat. So we have a panel of three speakers tonight. Michael Liu, who's author of Forever Struggle, Activism, Identity, and Survival in Boston's Chinatown, 1880 to 2018. That's a recently published book by University of Massachusetts. Nicole Filler, who is the Program Coordinator Research Associate for the Anti-Asian Racism Project at the Institute for Asian American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston. And our last speaker is Wei Yu, who's a coordinator of the China is Not Our Enemy campaign at Code Pink. So we're starting off with some context, history of Chinese and America, moving towards what's going on now with anti Asian racism incidents, and then moving on to the foreign policy aspect. So the first speaker is Michael, who will describe the myriad ways that US-China relations have shaped the fate and course of this community and its turbulent history. Michael. Okay, thank you. And thank you all for being here and for the other groups for organizing this. So US-China relations have had a long history. Actually, even before the formation of the country, if you remember the Boston Tea Party, which was a precipitating event in American Revolution, revolved around imported Chinese goods. And one month after the formation, the founding of the country, a US ship, the Empress of China left the port, the port of New York to establish a direct connection to China. But the circulation of trade inevitably led to the circulation of labor. So by the 1850s, large numbers of Chinese laborers arrived in California into a recently assembled transcontinental United States. The relationship was, however, one of otherness and contempt. So recall that in the middle 19th century, the US was deeply engaged in expansion. We believed in manifest destiny, our divine right to take over the continental United States. The Mexican-American War, which ended in 1848, and the 1898 Spanish-American War bracketed the last half of the 19th century. The Spanish-American War was when we became a full imperialist power. And racist characterizations of people in color, of people of color, including Chinese, were arose and were popularized to justify their subjugation. So an image from Poc, a prominent contemporary US publication, captured these attitudes. So I'm going to share it, image here. Can people see that? I'm not, I'm not seeing it. Ah, there we go. Okay, so this, so this is an image from Poc, and it kind of illustrates the attitude of the day. The United States, this is an 1898, I believe. And that to the day was that, you know, in this situation, the United States was a teacher, everybody else, the countries of color were children. So in the front, you can see the countries of the Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, which had been taken in the Spanish-American War, the recent Spanish-American War from Spain. And behind them, you can see the territories conquered from Mexico. And in the front is, you know, one of the large states of Texas and California. In the corner, on the upper left, you can see a African-American boy washing windows, probably without pay. And in the corner, you can see a one of the indigenous tribes reading a book upside down, and outside the door, not yet a colony, are Chinese Americans, I mean, are Chinese. And on the blackboard, it says, the US must govern its new territories with or without their consent, until they can govern themselves, because of course, the kids and they don't know how to, they don't have to govern themselves. So that was sort of a common attitude. So the other key element of US-China relations was to continue the decline of the Chinese Empire. They could only feebly intervene for their own interests and also for their people. So from the time that Chinese stepped onto US shores, discrimination, scorn and exploitation characterized the status. So I have another image. Sorry. Okay, I'm just going to skip that. But basically, it, you know, the image I was going to show you is from the Smithsonian. And it was also from a magazine in 1871, in which it which gave which express the attitudes of a lot of people in the United States toward the Chinese. And one of them said that, essentially, that Chinese are the lowest form of human life, and that I as a white man am opposed to them on basis of one race, two industry, three politics and other, and lastly, in terms of ethics, so that and all and all the other sentiments was were similarly expressed. So so therefore, you know, and and actually in the image, the United States was, government was seen as trying to guarantee Chinese who came to US fear play, but you know, that did not last very long. So I'm not going to go into detail into this early period that extended into the 20th century. And it was incombinated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which was the only US immigration law that signaled out ethnic or racial group for exclusion. I want to make two points about it. First, in this early period, was often forgotten is the casual and daily violence against Chinese that occurred, particularly after the 1873 depression. White workers supported by politicians and public bodies led campaigns to drive Chinese out of many areas. The largest lynching in the United States occurred in 1871 in Los Angeles, where 15 Chinese were hung. Six others died were killed by other means. Denver, Seattle, Tacoma, San Jose, Pasadena were among the 300 communities that had similar campaigns and drove Chinese out of the borders. And this is when, of course, the West was much more sparsely settled. So that, you know, violence against Chinese and and agents is thus, you know, an integral part of US history. Second, since the Chinese by the exclusion through the exclusion act were denied the right of natural naturalization. This period branded them as permanent aliens. This embedded the view that Chinese were forever, forever foreign and thus suspect, and this would subject that subject them to future changes in US China relations. And also anti Chinese sentiment was national in scope. The state of Massachusetts, you know, where where I live, for example, prohibit Chinese from more than 20 occupations. Other state laws restrict employment to citizens or union members disqualifying Chinese, they could only find housing in undesirable areas. And a social worker for one of the largest settlement houses in the city expressed a typical sentiment saying that Chinese quote, can never be in any sense American, end quote. So Chinese Americans remain a marginalized population during the decades following 1882. Those notable changes in attitudes only followed changes in US China relations. China, which became a Republic in 1911, was an ally of the United States during World War One. But it was the Japanese encroachment into China, the Sino-Japanese War, and reported Japanese abuses in the 1930s that led the US press and the public to adopt the most sympathetic attitude toward Chinese Americans. And this only strengthened with the entrance of the United States in the war in 1945. And China was again, a wartime ally. So this war eventually loosened the restrictions on Chinese immigration. But Chinese exclusion was an increasingly embarrassing policy. The Japanese used it as propaganda fodder for the wartime radio broadcasts, and they were protested in both China and the United States against against the policy. So China repealed it. I mean, Congress repealed the Exclusion Act in 1943. But it revealed its continuing prejudice by limiting the quota of immigration to 105 annually. But how the things became better, you know, Chinese could finally become naturalized. Chinese could housing segregation decreased, even though there was still discrimination, Chinese would begin to live outside of the Chinese enclaves. And then wartime necessity, necessity opened up occupations to Chinese who had been primarily limited to laundries and restaurants. And like other soldiers of color, Chinese American returning veterans began to view themselves as deserving of more equal rights. So in the immediate post World War Two period, through the immigration of small numbers of professionals, through the War Brides Act, which allowed Chinese American women in, which had Exclusion Act had had forbade, and to other small groups, the first family based community structure began to build the Chinese American community. But in 1949, the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War led to reversions. This was the early Cold War, and right wing mercantilism prevailed. One of the main issues was quote, who lost China? implying the presence of traders and subversives. Despite the Chinese American community leadership's staunch anti communism, suspicion of the population was part of the campaign. Immigration became much more difficult. Left oriented community organizations were physically attacked, and harassed mainstream Chinese community organizations were subpoenaed FBI investigations in the in the Chinatown initiated, and grand juries were impaneled. Beginning in 1956, and lasting a decade, the Immigration Naturalization Service had an investigation with which ensnared a sizable proportion of the community. The Chinese Confession Program probed the immigration status of the of many community members part of the hunt for resident traders. It affected one in three Chinese Americans, including war veterans. This period led to imprisonment, deportation, and at least one suicide. And so therefore, in the space of a few years, Chinese Americans were seen as a late alien others, then allies, and then potential traders, dependent on the vagaries of US-China relations. Since the 1960s, the superpower role in parts of the United States, the civil rights and black power movement, and immigration law reform, open a more benign period for Chinese and Asian Americans. More directly, the establishment of relations with People's Republic of China, and attempts to pull it into the neoliberal global order have created a more peaceful environment. However, this last phase is ending now. And I think the other panelists will speak to the consequent present conditions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael, for providing that historical showing that they're deep roots in current events in US history. And now our second speaker is Nicole, who will discuss the relationship between US policies and practices and the surge in reported hate crimes and incidents against Asians in Massachusetts since the onset of COVID-19. Nicole? Thank you, Duncan. And thank you to the Friendship Association for inviting me and to the other organizations that have organized this event. And thank you to my goal for bringing us through quite a long history and one that we need to keep remembering. So as not supposed to better understand what is going on right now, a low in anti China and anti Asian sentiments here in the United States. So I'm the program coordinator and research associate for the anti Asian racism project at the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston. I am fairly new to Boston and new to Massachusetts. So this has been a learning process, kind of understanding the different ways racism manifests and is shaped by the more local context. And certainly, Massachusetts has not been immune to the hatred, vitriol and violence against Asians and particularly against Chinese or those suspected of being Chinese. I'm going to draw from a few sources, data from various different organizations over the past few years, including the Institute for Asian American Studies, as well as API data. A lot of the data I'm going to share with you are from stop API hate, an organization of racial justice, racial justice coalition based in San Francisco that has been collecting reports online of incidents of anti hate incidents, incidents of hate, hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Since March 2020. I'll also share a bit of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation tracking hate crimes as well as the stories from in personal testimonies from community members here in Boston, and especially in Chinatown who have shared their personal experiences with racist xenophobic hate. So even prior to COVID-19, President Trump had campaigned and fulfilled the promises of the Muslim ban in 2016, launched the China initiative in 2018, only recently to be ended. And as soon as COVID-19 began, or the onset of COVID-19, at the highest levels of office, the pandemic has been racialized as a Chinese virus. But the view or the suspicion with which Chinese and other Asians are treated based on their association with their home country continues. And gang Chen was one of the hundreds of cases, false prosecutions, false accusations of espionage that have destroyed the careers of Chinese Americans, even prior to COVID-19. So the the racist rhetoric that persisted from the beginning of the COVID night from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, labeling COVID-19 as the China virus insisting that China is to blame, because of the health pandemic, to blame for the health pandemic because of the quote culture. And over the past, over the two years, since the explicit and overt racist rhetoric at the highest levels of office, stop a API hate received over 11,000 reports of hate incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationwide. As of early 2022, survey by launch and the Asian American Foundation found that about 20% of Americans overall believe that Asian Americans are at least partially responsible for COVID-19. And this is an increase compared to the survey taken in 2021. More recently, in Texas, the proposal of Senate Bill 147 to ban Chinese as well as Iranians, North Koreans and Russians who are not citizens from owning land is certainly a repetition of history of the kinds of racist laws like the alien land laws, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. And even more recently, in just last month, Representative Lance Gooden questioned the quote, loyalty and competence of Rep Judy Chu, who is the chairwoman of the Congressional APA Caucus. And of course, this the the kinds of everyday violence and mass tragedies, mass shootings, certainly are not covered in just this list of events. But the increasing animosity towards China is certainly having an effect on on not only Chinese in not only Chinese in the United States, but other Asian Americans as well. So these are these are reports from Stop AAPI hate and that were submitted to Stop AAPI hate from United States overall and and in Massachusetts. So Massachusetts, their Stop AAPI hate received 340 reports of anti AAPI incidents in Massachusetts, or about 1.6% of all reports, sorry, 3% of all reports nationwide, one in five incidents involved language that explicitly scapegoats Asian Asian Americans, that includes wrongfully blaming them for COVID-19, blaming them for espionage on behalf of the Communist Party, or blaming them for economic insecurity. So a significant share of thousands of of incidents and even incidents that have occurred in Massachusetts are explicitly mirroring the the rhetoric, the anti China rhetoric, blaming Chinese culture and Chinese people. And it's having a direct effect on the lives, the physical, the mental, the financial wellbeing of members of the Asian American community. So verbal and physical verbal hate speech and harassment comprised the largest share of of incidents both United States and in Massachusetts. But physical assaults are still a significant share both in Massachusetts and in nationwide. More recently, in Quincy, these kind of overt anti China rhetoric that's appearing in incidents, hate incidents and hate crimes recently occurred in in Quincy, Massachusetts, a town with one of the largest Asian American populations in Massachusetts, and just south of the city of Boston, yelling racial epithets as he was an Asian man was was run over by a car. Many of these incidents don't capture the toll that xenophobia and racism hatred takes on the lives of our members of our community every day. So a choice homeboy born grandfather in his 80s explained in a listening session in June, love last year that he and his wife live daily, fearing that they would be deported to anti due to anti immigrant rhetoric and misinformation, usually an active person he didn't leave his apartment for weeks and spent countless nights without sleep and started experiencing dizziness. The incidents that were reported to stop a API hate, a plurality, a clicker in public streets and spaces, followed by businesses. And we have heard countless stories and seen countless of examples of harassment and physical assaults in public streets and near businesses in spaces where Asian Americans frequent and feel safe, and have built community. In April 2022, an Asian woman elder and resident of Massachusetts for nearly 50 years was approached from the side and punched in the face while leaving a bakery in Boston's Chinatown. She shared her story with Council President Flynn, and on public news media. Her daughter also shared how difficult it was to, to find resources to know what to do after feeling that the police were able to help and didn't provide any kind of redress. There are several narratives in stop a API hate reports from Boston, Massachusetts. And I invite you to check those out. However, only 38% of the incidents submitted to stop a API hate came from Boston, the city of Boston. So the majority meaning that that this is happening not only in Boston, but also throughout Massachusetts. And quickly, a few surveys have shown that the incidents that has been submitted to stop a API hate might even underestimate or be biased in terms of who shares those incidents. And I should mention that the people who are reporting incidents to stop a API API hate from Massachusetts were 50%, 54% Chinese, more likely to be women and more likely to be younger than nationwide reports. Hate crimes against anti Asian hate crimes or hate crimes against Asian Americans seem to be abating or decreasing 54% of Asians and an API data momentum poll in March of 2022 indicated that they had experienced a hate crime or hate incident in 2021. As of early March 2022, that percentage had was 28% suggesting a slight abatement. So Asian Americans are not the only victims of hate crimes or hate incidents in a time of overt white supremacist violence. And the API data poll also shows this. The IAS COVID-19 survey, which focused on low income immigrant, limited English speaking Asian Americans in the greater Boston area also found that incidents of racial harassment and discrimination are certainly not uncommon. And these experiences have been hidden from existing surveys or previous surveys that tend to lump Asian Americans together and not understand our diversities and disparities within the community. I'll end with this slide. Or I'll skip a few slides since I think we're running out of time. But I want to mention that even in the most conservative estimates of hate crimes that are reported by law enforcement by Massachusetts law enforcement, anti Asian hate crimes in Massachusetts increased by more than 100% from before the pandemic through 2021. So there were 14 reported anti Asian hate crime incidents by Massachusetts law enforcement in 2019. In 2021, that number was 30. And to put this in perspective, hate crimes, law enforcement reported hate crimes have been increasing since before the pandemic. Asian Americans anti Asian hate crimes increased throughout both the first and the second years of the pandemic, while several other groups saw several other racial groups saw increases in in hate crimes racially motivated hate crimes, especially anti black hate crimes, while that number declined in 2021. And among other racial groups that increased for Asian kept increasing for Asian Americans. And it also increased increased for anti Arab hate crimes. So what we are doing now and what we continue to hope continue to do, focusing on reducing barriers to reporting hate crimes and other experiences of discrimination. This we're well aware of the barriers to reporting both on the side of the individuals and groups that are targeted, but also on the side of law enforcement who might not understand anti Asian racism or the kinds of discrimination that people of Asian descent experience on a daily basis. We're also prioritizing the physical mental and financial health and well being of those impacted most impacted by anti Asian hate violence and racism, particularly Chinese Americans, immigrants, limited English speakers, and elders. Promoting education about Asian American history experience, identity and contributions to advancing social justice, similar to what forever struggled the book is about. And also in relation to other racial and ethnic groups. Finally, it's important that we're ensuring that businesses and other places in the community are hate free zones. So spaces where Asian Americans, this could be Asian own businesses in Massachusetts, committing to creating spaces for anyone who feels unsafe to have a point of refuge, a place to regroup, figure out what to do next, learn about resources. And so this is where we're heading next for a group. But we also have bystander trainings, and self defense, and other community events to ensure that these issues are being addressed. Thank you. Thank you so much, Nikki. Responding to one question, a recording of this event will be sent to all participants. And in reference to the the trainings, somebody can put in the chat, there's an email that was provided. People can write for more information about anti racism trainings. We'll also send out information about that to the participants. Thank you so much. And our last speaker is Wei Yu from Code Pink. And her topic is towards peace, cooperation and normal US-China relations. Wei. Thank you so much, Duncan. And thank you to Nikki and also Michael who spoke earlier. Unlike everyone else on this panel, I don't live in Boston. I live in Southern California. Not hasn't been very sunny for us recently. But yeah, I actually grew up in the city in Los Angeles County called Monterey Park. We I remember my family used to love to go to this like one restaurant owned by some Chinese American folks who were born in the same city as my family. And we like whenever we were going to the restaurant, it would be my only opportunity to not just practice Mandarin, but also practice my dialect. I also did marching band in high school. I know I'm nerdy. I did marching band in high school. And I used to get all of my supplies from this independent music store also located in Monterey Park. So even though I don't live there anymore, the city still is like a very, I have so many like good amazing memories associated with the place and also the community. And the city recently got infamous because of a mass shooting that took place on January 21, which was the eve of Lunar New Year, the biggest cultural holidays for East Asian, also Southeast Asian communities. The mass shooting took away 11 lives. And the government also took his own life after that. And it's it just shook the community. And right after the tragedy, local leaders as well as Answer Coalition, which is one of Code Pink's close partners, the Los Angeles chapter, they organized vigils to mourn the losses. And actually yesterday, President Biden visited Monterey Park and delivered an address on gun control. However, this address of a tragedy that devastated the local Chinese American community came just one day that President Biden sold nuclear submarines to kill our family in China. Just the day before yesterday, President Biden was in San Diego finalizing a deal with Australia to sell nuclear powered attack submarines to militarize the Asia Pacific and also prepare for a war with China. So this is just one example that we see with this rampant aggression towards China. Last week, President Biden issued his budget proposal for the year 2024. And on Monday, Pentagon also submitted their budget request. And that included 15.3 billion for war with China. And specifically the Indo Pacific Command, for the first time, they got to submit their own budget request, which nearly tripled the amount last year. So where do all of this money go? They are just adding to this aggression towards China and really just hating Asian American and Pacific Islander community. So with not just Australia, we have a lot of weapons sales going on. The militarization of the Asia Pacific, we also see a great example of this is Guam. So the US Marine recently reopened a military base in Guam. Even though that's kind of recent in January, the construction of these new military facilities have been going on for a while. And they are building, they are having these constructions on ancestral burial ground killing people's past. And these constructions are also contaminating drinking water, which is killing people's future. It's also destroying the pristine environment as a lot of these constructions takes place in habitat of endangered species. We see the same thing, similar thing in Red Hill with the oil spill also killing the environment, as well as Okinawa in Japan. And I remember seeing a comment earlier drawing the parallel between China and Japan. And dad made a very good point that the US is using Japan to kind of counter China in the Asia Pacific region. Specifically, China, Japan being one of the access powers during World War Two. After the war, they adopted a constitution, a very pacifist constitution. But by the end of last year, the US is pushing Japan to steer away from its pacifist past for the past from its past pacifist path in the past 60 70 years and starting buying, spending millions to buy weapons from American arms manufacturers. In addition to the militarization of the Asia Pacific, we also see the manufacture of consent of war and also just driving hate within domestically. And Asian Americans are bearing the brunt of the brunt of the attack. And Nikki already went through some really amazing data, but also individual incidents. So I have like a lot of same sources because Stalby API 8 is just such an amazing project. So I just used their data and Nikki already went over those, which is great. So unlike the other two speakers, I'm a campaigner with Code Pink. So my job is not just to educate but also inviting all of you to joining in this movement to call for peace with China, even though we went over some really disturbing things. Some really disheartening things today, but really, the veil is really thin that we can easily disrupted with common sense. Just this weekend, the New York Times editorial board published an op ed calling for peace with China. This might have been the first time in history that this one of the biggest war mongering news outlet is publishing a piece calling for peace. And just carry on that inspiration. Michael earlier mentioned that there's a bill in Texas, or was it Nikki? Oh, I think it was sorry, a bill in Texas, SB 147, which would ban Chinese nationals from owning land in the state of Texas. And we actually have some friends in San Francisco, who recently published an article in San Francisco Chronicles, raising awareness about it. And we are looking to help them to build a campaign about it. I know Michael is with us today. I haven't seen Julie's name. But if you have any contact in Texas who would like to work together and organize something in Texas, please let us know. Let me know. And then I will relay all of your messages to our friends in San Francisco. Also, two other activists with our China Center enemy campaign, Linda and Steve, they are based out in Michigan, and they are actually starting their own local chapter of US or China People's Friendship Association. I connected them with Duncan a while ago, and hopefully, they can work together and produce more, more, a great local movements. But I also wanted to share a few pictures from their first event, which took place a week ago. So they had this is Dr. Chen, who is a scholar on Chinese language and writing etymology. And basically, their first event was just to talk about Chinese culture, specifically Chinese calligraphy, how each Chinese character comes to be. This is the Chinese symbol for peace. And it's, it's made up of the symbol for grain and also the mouth. So in Chinese culture, the peace means that we are meeting people's needs. And, and everyone all got to produce their own calligraphy. And we loved seeing all of the report back from our friends in Michigan. And in the future, we're hoping to have all of our advocates to have some sort of friendship building events in the future. If you RSVP for the event today, I will make sure to send the resources to you in a few days. And hopefully, Nikki will also share her slides with me and I will make sure to send those out too. Also, this Saturday, March 18th is the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. And Code Pink and the Coalition of Peace Organizations are demanding end to US wars and no war with China in Washington DC and across the country. We will have information for you to find out what cities are having these actions. And we hope that if you're able to make it, you can bring China is not an enemy message to the action in your area. So thank you all for being here. And I look forward to our Q&A. Thank you so much, Wei. Yeah, working for peace. Working for peace is going to be so beneficial, not only in term terms of preventing war, but also beneficial to the situation of Asian and Chinese Americans and all Americans here in the US. So thanks again to all our speakers for a very informative program, emphasizing connections of foreign policy and domestic situation. Now, we do have time for a couple of questions. So I saw a question in the chat, which any of the panelists could address and basically asked about how, you know, what is the connection of the police to anti Asian and anti Chinese racist incidents? Are there examples where the police are perpetrating these incidents or how does how do the police factor in? Does anybody want to try to answer that one? Sure, sure. Yeah, I can I can speak to that a little bit, but I'd be happy to hear from Michael and Wei as well. Racist policing has absolutely impacted Asian and Asian Americans. Racist policing is something that is anti Asian racism. The cases of Christian Hall, also of Faisal, UMass, former UMass Boston student. Yeah, so many, there's there's so many examples. And oftentimes, I think that police brutality and racist policing is thought of as an issue that Asian Americans are not concerned with, or Chinese or Americans are not concerned with or Chinese people are not concerned with. And that's absolutely. I absolutely don't think that's the case. And there are many times when Asians have been victims of racist police, and we should hold them accountable and work towards creating assist all systems that are free of racism and xenophobia and violence and hatred. Anybody else would like to comment on that? Okay, there was there's another question asking about the much publicized myth of the of the so called model model minority Asians are the model minority. So what's all this fuss about anyway? If I want to comment on our our Asians model minority? Well, so I think the, you know, I mean, I think it has to do with, you know, the the interests of the country. I mean, when when Chinese when the Chinese and actually Asian labor overall came to us, it was only because it was a need for labor. Initially, I mean, at that time, when the United States acquired California from Mexico, it was only 165,000 people in that whole area. And they need and they wanted to develop it. And there was there was, you know, and so that's why Chinese labor initially was welcome. So, you know, wasn't I think it's home put in a thing about the railroad. But it wasn't just a railroad, it was mining. It was agriculture. You know, the creation of agriculture in California had had to do with a lot of building up of dykes and levies and all these sorts of things. And so and so all that Asian labor was welcome. But once and of course, the transcontinental railroad hadn't been built. So so there was no it was hard for white labor to come over to to the to the Pacific. But once they arrived, you know, once they start to compete, white labor competed with Asian labor, then that's when China, Chinese and other Asians were driven out. And and and and they were they were being driven out different industries. So I think in a similar way, when the model minority in the post World War Two period, the United States was a dominant superpower, right? And had a different role, they had to manage all these different countries. So part of the reason for having a better attitude toward different races is that they had also had to try to win over a lot of countries of color, as well as, you know, European countries. So so that's one thing. And but also in terms of managing all this, they needed people to help administer and manage, you know, global affairs. So that's, you know, and and that's why, you know, in basically the big reform, immigration law that the 1965 immigration reform law, they put it had a preference for managers and professionals. And that included a lot of people from unexpectedly, though, from Asia. And so, and that's the beginning of, I think, you know, what about the beginning of the Chinese model minority myth, that's when the Chinese, the class composition of Chinese and Asians begin to really change. You know, the other thing, of course, is that the they want to because I had mentioned that the Chinese community has staunch anti communist leadership. And they also had a philosophy about keeping the community shouldn't make trouble should get along. And so that, and so that to the extent that they're able to promote that among the Chinese. And I think some of the other Asian communities leadership had the same attitude. That was a counterpoint to what was happening at the time, which was a civil rights movement, where African American is making trouble, and Asians being told by their own leadership, and, you know, not to make trouble. So I think that's that is the origins of the model minority myth. But the fact that, you know, Asians have been, you know, they were do relatively well economically here in this country, you know, also provides a basis for, you know, for them promoting that myth. So I mean, that's just my take on it. I don't know others might have can I just quickly add to this? I'm also going to like take off my coat pink hat for a little bit because before code pink, my activism was mainly about organizing solidarity among all people of color against for anti racism. So I definitely had to confront the model minority myth myself a little for a while. And like Michael mentioned, correctly. I think the origin of the term model minority, I think it came from actually a New York Times article. So again, what is with New York Times anyway, published in the 70s, actually praising Japanese immigrants about their quote unquote work ethics, kind of as a justification that if these people of color can work hard to make a good living for themselves, then other people of color who have experienced this institutional racism that barred them from economic well being, financial well being, it's only their own flaw and basically kind of scapegoating these people instead of actually addressing the systemic injustice. And we see that even today, as going back to that last question with policing, yeah, a lot to unpack. But I think our at code pink, we are anti imperialist organization, and we do recognize that there is systemic racism in our country. And we need to all work together and not let model minority being a weed that divide us and work together towards a peaceful future. Okay, thanks. I'll just remind people we said at the beginning that we need to put questions into the chat. So I think we have time for maybe, maybe more, or about an hour right now, maybe one more question. Is a reference to Chinatown Rising, which I assume is a film, or a video about Asians, blacks, and brown United form ethnic studies. That may have been at San Francisco State, I'm not sure. There's another reference to the internment camps during World War Two, where the Japanese were Japanese people were sent. Just another very important fact in terms of historical fact. And maybe somebody could put code pinks. Some of their links to their activities into the chat. And there's also a link to some information about the friendship association could go into the chat. So I think it's about time to close now. And I want to very much thank all of our panelists, Michael, Nikki and Wei, and everybody who joined us and participated in the discussions. And we also want to thank all three co sponsoring organizations. And we, and particularly thank code pink. We're doing the technical support behind the scenes. So I think there's some information about how to support code picks campaign for peace. And how to contact the US China People's Friendship Association or a membership organization. You're welcome to join us. Our sole principle is upholding the one China policy. This webinar was recorded. Will be available on the website of code pink. And we're building a website for the US China People's Friendship Association in New England. And we're going to post it on there as well. All of the organizations can be contacted. We will send out this recording and information and links about the organizations and the activities. So I want to thank everyone again. Does anyone of the panelists to the panelists want to have any final words now? Just very quickly, I did see a question. I think it was early on about someone asking what because I mentioned that the veil is thin. So what messaging can we use? Can we rely on to cut through that veil most effectively? And I just want to quickly touch on that. So one of the things asked that person who asked the question is definitely that Asian Americans and Pacific Islander community are bearing the brunt of the attack on China. And also secondly is that the military buildup, especially as we see in the Asia Pacific is not only destroying people's lives, but also hurting the environment. So we need to put people on planet before war profiteering. And lastly, also, because there's with all of these ongoing aggression with China and also just like viewing China as our enemy, we are missing out on opportunities to collaborate with this country with one and a half billion people, second largest economy in the world, things like broker in peace in Ukraine, solving the climate prices and also addressing global health and also poverty. So yeah, cooperation before competition. We want to stop Asian hate and also we need to save the planet. Those are the three most effective messaging I think. Thank you so much. Any final comments from the other panelists? If not, let's give a round of applause to all the panelists and to code pink. And good night, everybody. And hope we will see you soon. Bye bye.