How discrimination affects health + Mask donations between Sacramento and China
It is Friday, April 17, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a recap on the stories I recently covered and issues I’m following:
Despite the shelter-in-place policies across the nation to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the number of discriminatory incidents remain on the rise. Social stressors, including microaggressions such as racial slurs, could weaken the immune system and make a person sick, experts say.
To combat discrimination is not just a civil rights issue, but also an important health issue, said said Gilbert Gee, community health sciences professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and an expert in health inequalities in immigrant populations.
“In the context of COVID-19, it is possible that (someone) encountering discrimination may be more likely to be ill,” Gee said. “That could worsen the pandemic for everybody. People who’ve encountered discrimination make them less likely to see the doctor because they are just too afraid to get out, and that makes it worse for everybody.”
Surgical masks have been in dire shortage for health care providers across the country and in California amid the coronavirus outbreak. From the Sacramento area all the way to China, several Chinese community members are lending a hand.
Several Sacramento-area organizations have worked to raise funds to donate masks and other medical supplies to hospitals, first responders, schools and stores in the region.
Some donations have come from people in the community and from parents in China who have children studying at the University of California, Davis.
“It is a minimum of what we can do as citizens,” said Jane Zhang, vice president of the Zhejiang University Alumni Association. “If everyone can contribute a little bit, together we can fight and win this.”
In other news
Federal agencies are doing little about the rise in anti-Asian hate [NBC News]
Coronavirus kills California blacks and Pacific Islanders at excessive rate, numbers show [The Sacramento Bee]
Foster Farms workers seek increased safety measures amid COVID-19 pandemic, says group [The Fresno Bee]
Irene Hirano Inouye, champion of Japanese American causes, dies at 71 [L.A. Times]
Isleton resident earns Sac County Woman of the Year honors [Daily Republic]
Orange County gets more than 10,000 face masks from Asian American nonprofits [Orange County Register]
‘Hero’: Pakistani-American doctor takes on ventilator shortages [Al Jazeera]
Korean barbecue spots pivot to become meat markets in Southern California [NBC News]
Minnesota’s Hmong community shares lessons learned from virtual connections [KARE 11]
Are you working on the front lines in some way to help with the containment of the coronavirus, or are contributing to the health and well-being of our community? If so, I’d like to do a story on you. Reach out to me at tyu@sacbee.com.
Finally, what stories would you like to read about? Please send me your tips and suggestions.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Thanks for reading, stay safe and hang in there!
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