An Asian nurse in Toronto was spat on, believes it was racially motivated

Katherine Cheung, who is a registered nurse, was walking around downtown Toronto with a friend when the assault occurred. Cheung said she believes the attack, "happened because I’m Asian and wearing a mask.”

“Me and my roommate are both nurses and we went for a walk,” said Cheung. “We stopped by a restaurant that was offering a discount for healthcare workers and waited outside for our order.”

While waiting for their food around the University Avenue and Adelaide Street West area, Cheung was approached by a woman in her 60's who hit her with an umbrella and spat on her.

“Then she started hitting us with an umbrella,” said Cheung. “She told me to go back to wherever I came from and called me racial slurs. Then she came very close to my face and purposely spit on me.”

Cheung was wearing a medical mask at the time of the attack however she still felt spit land around her eyes which she had to wipe away with her hands. Cheung promptly filed a police report before checking herself into a hospital.

“This person on the street decided to purposely expose me to whatever viruses she possibly had because of my race.” said Cheung.

Cheung was told by her employer to take some time off work in order to recover from the incident. “They’ve been very supportive, but I do want to get back to work,” she said but added that she remains feeling, “disrespected and disregarded.”

Toronto police are currently investigating the incident.

Cheung has lived in Canada since 2003, and said that while this isn't the first time she's encountered racism, she does feel it has escalated since the COVID-19 outbreak. “Since the start of COVID-19, it has escalated,” she said. “But not to this level.”

Leaders of Toronto's Chinese-Canadian community held a press conference back at the end of January to discuss the growing stigmatization they were facing lieu of the outbreak. The conference was originally held after a string of discriminatory incidents took place on social media.

Outside of Ontario, Asian communities in Montreal say they too have noticed a rise in discrimination since the virus has began to spread.

Several weeks ago, Adam Gagnon, a Montrealer originally from China was out shopping for groceries when he was approached by a man in his 40's, “A man came up to me and said 'You should go back to where you're from with your virus' and he just spit on my feet and left like nothing happened.” said Gagnon.

“I felt threatened and really scared and angry,” he said. “I couldn't believe something like that was happening to me at the moment. I was in shock.”

US President Trump has routinely been called out for referring to coronavirus as the “Chinese Virus.” Trump doesn’t believe such rhetoric puts Asian Americans at a higher risk of bigotry, however reports of virus-related discrimination challenge that notion.

An Asian man was sprayed with Febreeze on a subway car in Brooklyn, New York, recently and another report surfaced of a 16-year-old boy of Asian-decent being bullied at his school in Los Angeles.

Cheung says she will self-isolate for the time being, just incase she was infected but hopes that sharing her story will shed some light on what Asian-Canadian communities have been facing as of late.

“Since we don’t know when COVID-19 will end, I anticipate that the hate crimes will increase as time goes on,” said Cheung. “When anyone makes a hateful remark or physical aggression towards a minority, they have no idea what this person’s background or story is.”

“And yesterday there were some people that passed by but didn’t offer any assistance; I’m hoping my story will help to change that.”