Rowena Leong Singer

Because Trump perpetuates hate crimes

I’m voting for Kamala Harris because we need solutions, not hate crimes. This may be old news to some, the infamous tweet by Trump back in March 16, 2020, calling COVID-19 a “Chinese virus” at the start of the global pandemic. In fact, Trump didn’t even believe the virus existed, first calling it a “hoax.” Then, rather focusing on simple solutions—like encouraging the public to wear masks and significantly increasing testing—he offered stories about how the pandemic was under control (against the warnings of health experts), while concurrently attributing blame for the virus to an entire race. In contrast, Kamala Harris not only promoted wearing masks and wore one herself but also pushed for free COVID testing and free masks to address disparities in health care for communities of color. During Trump’s presidency, the nation’s death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 350,000 by December 2020 and anti-Asian hate crimes spiked.

According to the FBI, incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes jumped from 158 in 2019 to 279 in 2020 and 746 in 2021, first spiking in March and April 2020. In November 2023, a reported one-third of Asian adults say they “personally know an Asian person in the US who has been threatened or attacked because of their race or ethnicity since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020” according to the Pew Research Center. Asians were stabbed, robbed, or otherwise attacked in public areas or places of business, such as the two Asian women stabbed while waiting at a bus stop in San Francisco, or the gunman who shot and killed six women of Asian descent at three Georgia massage spas.

If another national security threat or foreign policy draws attention to another group of people, I can see history repeating itself under a Trump presidency. That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris, because I want a president who will focus on solutions, not one who perpetuates hate crimes.

Rowena Leong Singer is a Chinese Filipino writer who is published in The New York Times, Black Warrior Review, Narrative magazine, and KQED’s Perspectives. She is the grand-prize winner in literary fiction for the Book Pipeline Unpublished Contest, a semifinalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship Contest, and a fellowship recipient for the International Literary Seminar Fiction Contest, inaugural Rooted & Written Conference, and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Summer Writers’ Conference. She received her MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she was awarded the Barry Hannah Merit Scholarship in Fiction. 

Rowena Leong Singer is a Chinese Filipino writer who is published in the New York Times, Black Warrior Review, and Narrative Magazine.