By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Last week in New York City, another “kababayan” was assaulted in an ugly display of racial hate. The victim, Potri Ranka Manis, is a nurse, cultural dance artist, and daughter of a sultan in Sulu.
Wearing of face masks has been made compulsory in all modes of public transport in the Big Apple to prevent the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, so Manis – in her own capacity – was giving away face masks to subway commuters last August 10.
But none of her kind service to the New York community mattered to the African-American couple who physically hurt her in the face and body, yelled racial slurs at her, and demanded that she “return to China.”
Manis was hospitalized and logged as No. 18 in the list of victims of anti-Asian hate crimes reported to the Philippine Consulate in New York since January this year.
When these things happen, we tend to question what US authorities, especially New York Mayor Bill de Blasio in this case, are doing to set things straight and promote an appropriate general awareness that COVID-19 is a health and not a racial issue.
For instance, those who tend to sow hate should understand the contribution of Filipino-American nurses to the US frontline battle against this pandemic. We’re talking about at least 150,000 Fil-Am nurses in the trenches of this war versus COVID across all US states. Unfortunately, thousands among them have contracted the virus and 193 have died.
And who knows how many thousands more of Pinoy caregivers are risking their lives each day to drive America past the hump of this medical crisis. That is the sector Manis came from to help secure the health of strangers in the New York subway.
Mattel, the toy company that makes iconic Barbie dolls, best exemplifies the fervor to set perspectives in a better context by coming up with a line of Barbies as a tribute to global medical frontliners. By no accident, its model for a US medical frontliner for the Barbie series is a Fil-Am physician in Las Vegas, Dr. Audrey Sue Cruz.
It’s a testament to the truth that Fil-Ams, along with other Asians and immigrants, are among the 512,000 professionals in scrub suits fighting every American citizen’s battle against COVID in the healthcare sector.
They deserve to be honored or at least afforded the respect they are entitled to under the blanket of civil liberties America is best known to champion, protect and uphold.
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