Showing courage in the face of ignorance

Courage is not letting hard and scary times affect who you are and how you act. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was scary and surprised many people. We were at school like normal and then when we finished lunch, we got sent home because of COVID-19. I was scared because there wasn’t a lot of information about it and there was no vaccine or medicine yet. My health back then was really bad and I would get sick very easily. I had to move away from my grandparents and aunts because my mom thought it would be safer to stay away from them. My mom would watch the news and see that many materials like face masks, paper, and other necessities were going out of stock because people were buying a lot of stuff. This was a scary moment because a lot of people had died and we didn’t have face masks.

My dad was Uber driving in person and he would see many people who might have had COVID. I was scared for my dad because when he was driving, he didn’t wear face masks. Sometimes the passengers were from other countries and some of them didn’t wear face masks either. My mom also had to help out at her aunt’s restaurant because they didn’t have a lot of staff because most of them were not working because of COVID. Soon after, we had to stay home and we could only go out with facemasks.

When I went shopping at a supermarket or store, people would be really mean and like to walk away and stare at us and give us looks. Sometimes if we were looking for stuff and we would stand near someone, they would be like: Ew, stay away from me. I would be confused about why because I didn’t check the news back then. After a few months, My mom told me that there was news saying it was from Wuhan, China. My mom also told me that people were very mean. For example, Donald Trump blamed China for the spread of the coronavirus by using the phrase “Chinese virus.” I was very sad because people were treating me weirdly and I didn’t do anything. Just because the virus was from China did not mean that I had it.

Every time I went shopping, people would be mean so I started to not go to stores and made up excuses to not go. After a while, I realized that I spent too much time indoors and I really wanted to go buy stuff. One day, I asked my mom if I could go buy some food, she said I needed to learn to ignore what people were saying because it wasn’t worth listening to. When I went to the store, I started to ignore all the comments like it never happened. I felt better every time I went even though the comments were getting meaner. My family and I showed courage by not listening to other people even if the comments were harsh.

The lesson I learned was to not let anything or anyone affect who you are and what you do. Courage is not letting scary and hard times affect who you are and how you act. Being Asian-American during COVID was harsh because of people disrespecting you and they show courage by not being affected by it.