Thursday, May 6, 2021
Vicha Ratanapakdee, Noel Quintana, Haruka Sakaguchi. These are just a few of the names of thousands of Asian Americans who have been the targets of hate crimes in the United States. These crimes have ranged from verbal harassment to murder. When I look at these vicious attacks on the Asian American community, I see my future. While the isolation of Notre Dame’s campus has protected me from outside aggression, my time here is limited. In five years I will be gone, off pursuing a life of my own, armed with the tools that this school has provided me. By then, the pandemic will be a distant memory, an upsetting first year overshadowed by the next consecutive four years of my undergraduate experience. The vaccine will be distributed, public spaces and venues will reopen, families will reunite. But for a large portion of Americans, life will never go back to the way it was before COVID-19. Vicha Ratanapakdee will never get his life back. Noel Quintana sees the scars his attacker left every day when he looks in the mirror, stitches etched across his face. There is no vaccine for racism, no scientific cure that will erase a history of hate, fear and violence. The only solution to racism is building an anti-racist society, one that starts with us Notre Dame students.
