The coronavirus pandemic is affecting many facets of American life, from how people eat and shop, to the social interactions that they so depend upon. With all this change, however, has come with the fear that everything will never be the same. That fear has lead to wrongfully directed paranoia and hatred towards Asian Americans.

Frankly, racism is nothing new in America and neither is hatred toward people of Asian descent. From the creation of Japanese internment camps during World War II because of Pearl Harbor to the LA riots of 1942, violent actions motivated by fear are now occurring once again, for the same reason.

A man stabbed a Burmese-American man and his two sons, ages two and six, at a local Sam’s Club in Texas. The man’s defense was that he believed they were, “Chinese and infecting people with the coronavirus,” according to an article by the Human Rights Watch organization. In New York, one of the epicenters of the coronavirus in the United States, an Asian woman was victim to an acid-attack while taking out her garbage.

Instances such as these have been so prevalent across America that an online forum titled Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate has been created by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. On the website, people can fill out and submit forms documenting instances of such racist actions. In just the first week of the forum’s opening, over 650 incidents were reported. In the next week, the number of cases increased nearly two-fold to over 1,100.

Such statistics are alarming and serve as a testament to an apparent problem with how people choose to react to the pandemic. The data may not even truly encompass the vast number of minor disturbances and unreported incidents. However prevalent these issues may be in America, major media sources have seemed to avoid dedicating reporting time to them. Awareness is the first step to change, but if no one knows what’s going on, nobody can change for the better.