Before COVID, most participants did not embrace being Chinese

This was the case regardless of whether the interviewees grew up with a tight-knit Chinese American community or lived in a mostly non-Asian neighborhood. In the first group, participants did not experience a strong enough contrasts to perceive themselves as being Chinese American: 

“Most of my friends are Asian American so there was never this sense of, like, oh yes Asian American pride, mostly because that was just a way of living, I think. Growing up, like, it wasn't like, ‘oh yes, we are Chinese so we do this’, it was just ‘let's do this’.” 

On the other hand, interviewees who grew up in an environment with fewer Asians lived a “double-life” at school and at home. This highlighted the Chinese attributes; school life is considered “normal,” and home was not. The latter was laced with negativity. In this case, navigating and accepting their identity was a struggle in isolation as there were very few Chinese American students to connect with. 

“But yeah, I definitely started [speaking English at home] because I just didn't want to be Chinese. I just wanted to be like a normal kid.” 

However, hate crimes against Chinese Americans during COVID catalyzed a stronger sense of ethnic identity by igniting anger and solidarity 

All the participants took the hate crimes personally as they identified with the victims, which led to various identify reckonings that involved newfound anger. This is true especially for the cases against elders:

"It was like...first the personal feelings of, 'oh my god. She looks like my grandmother,' like, she represents my grandmother next to me and someone destroyed that. But also like, the feelings of knowing what my grandparents feel about being and living in America, how must *she* feel [as well, seeing those cases]."

Respecting one's elders is one of the backbones of Chinese culture that all the participants emphasized that they value and practice with their own grandparents. For the first time, the discrimination and racism elicited anger and disappointment (a “new low” as some participants noted) and forced participants to reflect and defend their identity at a level they have never explored before, especially for participants that felt detached from their Chinese American identity. The following excerpts are from two different participants:

"I never really had a reason to think about it for me personally except for like class assignments and stuff. I think because COVID, like the racism as a result of COVID, felt very personal, I had to think about it personally."

"This kind of like, these events kind of did make me be more defensive about like, Asian American, like, no matter how whitewashed they are, like how fobby [fob = fresh off the boat] they are. All of us are better than that, deserve better than that. So that did kind of change things a little bit. Yeah. Also, I think seeing other people's reactions was also actually helpful. like seeing other people's like, outrage. I was just like, yeah..? yeah! That's outrageous! You know what I mean? So that has helped too, definitely [with sensing that Chinese American is a unifying identity she can feel solidarity with]."

AAPI movements helped direct their identity questioning towards self-empowerment 

Seeing the activism movements over media was a major surprise to the interviewees. One participant mentioned that this movement allowed her to identify an reframe her own ingrained, subconscious belief that Asians are submissive; while another stated that it was not until seeing Asian Americans on screen at this scale for the first time that she realized how underrepresented Asians are in the media. All the interviewees mentioned a newfound sense of pride for their identity attributed to the movements. However, one participant described a more complex internal state given her parents’ teaching to “mind your own business,” which she does identify as a Chinese value that she is trying to “unlearn”:

"I felt good that there are people speaking up about it, but also I felt like, kind of embarrassed...I think that I was raised through this lens of like, you know, don't make a scene, keep your head down, kind of thing and so unlearning that attitude, is...is still a work in progress. There's no shame in saying, like, “Hey, we're in trouble.” But why do I feel still...why do I still feel so ashamed when we're attacked? Right when we're the one who is in trouble? That's a question I still have to, you know, deal with. Myself."