I 

put my fingers on 

the scanning screen 

for the third time, as 

the machine was unable to 

recognize my fingerprints. 

After finally succeeding, I 

quickly put my mask back on 

as my fingers fumbled with 

my immigration documents.

“Please come with me,” 

a U.S. Customs and Bor-

der Protection officer sig-

naled in my direction after 

I passed the Canadian bor-

der into the United States, 

proceeding to walk me to a 
door on the side of the hall. 

I sat alone on the bench and 

waited for about 10 minutes 

before another officer came 

into the room and sat beside 

me. 

In a calm manner, she 

asked me a series of person-

al questions: What were my 

private and school emails, 

what was my American ad-

dress, how much cash I was 

carrying and lastly, “Do you 

have WeChat?” 

WeChat is a multipur-

pose, Chinese social media 

application. Many people refer 

to it as China’s equivalent of WhatsApp, 

but with greater bandwidth. The services 

WeChat offers include, but are not limited 

to, e-transferring, mobile payments, or-

dering food at a restaurant without wait-

ers, online shopping and location sharing. 

Recently, due to WeChat’s role in China’s 

oversea censorship and spreading propa-

gandistic misinformation, the Trump ad-

ministration has denounced the app as a 

national security threat and proposed its 

ban in the United States.

I reluctantly gave the officer my infor-

mation. Though recently many Chinese 

international students have been sub-

jected to harassment and interrogation 

at Customs and Border Protection, I was 

completely caught off guard by their line 

of questioning. I am not a Chinese citizen, 

but a Canadian one — the only indication 

of my Chinese heritage is my name and a 

stamp on my passport showing I had trav-

eled there last summer. In that moment, 

my sense of surprise was overcome by fear 

and anxiety about my alien status in the 

U.S. Do I really belong?

The officer then put the notepad away 

and went into the back room for a pair of 

gloves, her demeanor seemingly pleasant 

but her actions and questions intrusive. 

She unpacked all of the pockets in my 

backpack, my pencil case, my wallet (and 

counted the cash) and my immigration 

files. She pointed at the Hangul characters 

in my notebook and asked “Is that Manda-

rin?” She was startled after I told her that 

it was actually Korean, a language I was 

trying to learn, and moved on with her 

search. She left in a haste after thoroughly 

probing all of my belongings. When alone, 

I realized that my legs were shaking. 
T

ensions between the U.S. and 

China escalated during the 

trade war of late 2018. Though 

economic pressures from both sides had 

calmed after a series of negotiations, more 

conflicts ensued in mid-February, when 

China expelled three Wall Street Journal 

reporters in the name of a racially insensi-

tive headline: “China Is the Real Sick Man 

of Asia” — a phrase that carries strong un-

dertones of European colonial history in 

China.

Though the reason for expulsion may 

be justified, this measure only provoked 

further retaliations — like limited staff 

for five Chinese news organizations in the 

U.S. — from the Trump administration. 

After China passed the National Security 

Law, which significantly infringes upon 

Hong Kong’s democracy, the Trump ad-

ministration responded by ending Hong 

Kong’s preferential trade status with the 

U.S. and China vowed to retaliate. In late 

July, the U.S. had also shut down the Chi-

nese Consulate in Houston, accusing it 

of espionage efforts. As a direct result, 

the American Consulate in Chengdu was 

ordered to close within a 72-hour time 

frame.

When the pandemic first started taking 

shape in the U.S., fear and ignorance about 

the virus fueled an increased sentiment of 

xenophobia. Asians have been assaulted 

on public transit and called “diseased,” 

and Chinese businesses in New York City 

reported an approximate 40% sales drop 

while Boston’s Chinatown had also suf-

fered significant customer loss after the 

first COVID-19 case was confirmed in 

Massachusetts.

As U.S.-China tensions escalate, Chi-

nese nationals tend to become the most 

vulnerable subjects of discrimination. 

Therefore, I spoke* to three Chinese in-

ternational students about how they are 

persevering and navigating their lives in a 

country that does not want them.

*The following interviews were conduct-

ed in Mandarin Chinese, for the most effec-

tive and genuine form of communication, 

and translated into English.
J

ulia**:

**The following interviewee 

uses a pseudonym for fear of re-

taliation from the University.

It was one minute past our meeting 

time at 7 p.m. when Julia entered the 

Zoom meeting. She was sitting at her 

desk in her shared apartment near central 

campus. Throughout our conversations, I 

could hear loud bass music coming from 

her side and the occasional roaring motor-

cycles passing by.

“Do you ever hear parties like that 

where you live?” Julia smiled exasperat-

edly, “We get that all the time.”

Julia is a Chinese international student 

who just transferred to the University of 

Michigan last September. Julia made the 

choice to stay in Ann Arbor when classes 

moved online because she did not want to 

contract COVID-19 on her way home. She 

has stayed in the U.S. for more than nine 

months as the last time she went home 

was for Winter Break.

Coming to the U.S. was a big decision 

for her, but Julia wanted new possibilities 

in life and to challenge herself. Julia’s col-

lege experience has largely been positive, 

as she met many people who shared her 

passions in her program. But when the vi-

rus spread through the world last March, 

she began to develop a deeper under-

standing of racism and xenophobia on the 

campus that she made her home.

According to Pew Research Center, 

31% of Asian Ameircans and 21% of Black 

Americans report having experienced ra-

cial slurs and jokes since the COVID-19 

outbreak began. When I told Julia that 

earlier this year people would turn around 

to look at me while I’d speak on the phone 

with my mom in Chinese, Julia confessed 

that she has felt similar aversion and con-

fusion from others.

“A white girl once told my friend dur-

ing class ‘it’s the Chinese who brought 

the virus here,’” Julia recounted. “I was 

so shocked to learn this from my friend. 

Apparently the girl said it so blatantly in 

front of a lot of students, and I found that 

quite rude.” 

Born into a racially homogenous home-

land (Han Chinese makes up 91% of Chi-

nese population), Julia said that she did 

not start thinking seriously about racial 

issues until after she moved to the United 

States. She told me she was particularly 

influenced by a sociology course she took 

this past summer, where the professor in-

vited speakers from different ethnic back-

grounds to share their experiences with 

race.

“That’s when I had an epiphany, that 

the color of your skin could dictate how 

others perceive you.” 

Despite her unpleasant experience 

with xenophobia, Julia told me that she is 

still interested in pursuing her postgradu-

ate studies in the U.S. However, she can 

also foresee the increased discrimination 

and retaliation that she might face as U.S.-

China relations aggravate, such as further 

limited opportunities for international 

students and drastic changes in visa poli-

cies. 

As one of the U.S.’s most profitable ex-

ports, higher-education institutions have 

always relied on their international stu-

dents to make up for budget gaps. Nev-

ertheless, many American colleges have 

already observed a sharp decline in Chi-

nese international student 

enrollment rates prior to the 

pandemic. As the Trump ad-

ministration continues to en-

force travel restrictions and 

other policies that restrict 

work 
opportunities 
from 

international students, the 

road ahead appears uncer-

tain. For now, though, Julia 

is willing to risk this uncer-

tainty for her education.

“Now I just miss home 

cooked food.” Julia smiled 

again, this time not exasper-

atedly. “I have a lot of friends 
who went to the Shanghai 

Disneyland already and I am 

super jealous.”
S

huchen:

On a warm Satur-

day afternoon, I met 

with Shuchen Wei on Zoom, 

me in my East Quad Resi-

dence Hall room and she in 

her off-campus apartment. 

Shuchen is currently in her 

last year at the University of 

Michigan, and she chose to 

stay in Ann Arbor in March 

in fear that further U.S.-Chi-

na tensions could keep her 

stuck in China and meddle with 

her graduation plans. 

“It has been a year since I last went 

home and I really miss my parents,” 

Shuchen said. “But if I go back (to China), 

attending synchronous lectures would 

disrupt my sleep cycles.”

Shuchen told me that homesickness 

is not an unfamiliar feeling for her, since 

she has repeatedly thought about going 

home as COVID-19 cases were increas-

ing at an unprecedented pace in the U.S. 

She was also concerned about the armed 

demonstrations in East Lansing in protest 

of Governor Whitmer’s stay-at-home or-

ders, seeing it as a sign of the U.S.’s poor 

pandemic strategies. However, booking a 

flight home was no easy feat: In March, 

3,102 out of 3,800 planned commercial 

flights from and to China were canceled. 

China had also restricted many interna-

tional flights to prevent their own citizens 

from bringing the virus home.

Additionally, on July 6, the U.S. Immi-

gration and Customs Enforcement issued 

a new policy (now revoked after backlash 

from various prestigious universities) that 

would have stripped international stu-

dents of their visas if their coursework 

were entirely online. This also generated 

great anxieties among Chinese students 

about their immigration status and fears 

of never being able to return to their in-

stitutions.

“After the ICE policy first came out, 

a lot of my classmates who returned to 

China for the summer panicked,” Shuchen 

explained. “I know of some people who 

planned to quarantine in Cambodia for 

14 days and then make their flight back. 

There were a lot of flight cancellations but 

some tickets did not offer refunds, which 

was also stressful financially.”

More so, U.S. government officials have 

recommended excluding Chinese stu-

dents from critical technology disciplines 

to prevent espionage efforts, while Chi-

nese international students have faced 

increasing scrutiny while passing through 

Customs and Border Protection. These 

policies have since turned many Chinese 

students and researchers away from pur-

suing their education here in the future. 

Shuchen 
echoed 
a 
similar 
senti-

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
14 — Wednesday, September 23, 2020 
statement

Looking in: The unseen challenges 
of Chinese international students 
at U-M
BY LOLA YANG, STATEMENT CORRESPONDENT

ILLUSTRATION BY EILEEN KELLY

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

