Coronavirus Has Sparked Another Epidemic in My Prison: Anti-Asian Racism

Sitting in my cell on a mandatory precautionary quarantine, I'm still finding it difficult to make sense of everything that's going on.

In the beginning, “pandemic” was a word I had to translate for my cellie, a Vietnamese refugee who struggled with English. After he understood what that really meant, he anxiously questioned if it was going to affect his upcoming release.

I told him that I don't know, and we both sat silently—helplessly—staring at CNN for answers about this invisible adversary.

I’d had my first encounter with this adversary in