トランプ氏の「中国ウイルス」連呼が呼び覚ます、米国の暗い歴史

【ワシントンＡＦＰ＝時事】新型コロナウイルスを繰り返し「中国ウイルス」と呼ぶドナルド・トランプ米大統領の言葉遣いには、一部のアジア系米国人にとって歴史上、暗い前例がある。（写真は資料写真）
　アジア系米国人やその擁護団体などは、「中国ウイルス」といった言い方は、異質で不潔なアジア人社会といった数世紀にわたる偏見を助長し、一つの民族に属する人々が病気の拡散の責任を負うべきという誤った認識を与え、時に暴力を伴うアジア人への反発をあおっていると批判する。
　ニューヨークの地下鉄では先月、マスクを着けたアジア系女性を男が追いかけ、「病気」呼ばわりをして殴りかかる事件が起きた。
　そうした中で今月１９日、アジア系米国人が新型コロナウイルスのパンデミック（世界的な大流行）に関連した差別犯罪の被害を報告するためのサイトが、複数の公民権運動グループによって開設された。サイト立ち上げから２４時間で、３６件の報告が寄せられたという。
　米ロサンゼルスのマイノリティー住民組織の連合体、アジア太平洋政策立案評議会のマンジュサ・クルカルニ事務局長によると、市内の中学校ではアジア系の生徒がクラスメートに新型コロナウイルスに感染していると責められ、中国へ「帰れ」と言われながら頭を２０回も殴られるいじめも発生した。
　こうした暴力は、１８８２年に米国が中国人の移住を全面禁止した「黄禍」論にさかのぼる大きな歴史の一部だとクルカルニ氏はいう。「状況は絶対に悪化すると思う。それは（トランプ）大統領が移民社会への憎悪を武器として利用しようと、執拗（しつよう）に試みているせいでもある」「彼は公的権力を持っている。それは強大な力で、人々は彼に耳を貸す」
　カリフォルニア大学ヘイスティングス法科大学院教授で、「Ｙｅｌｌｏｗ：Ｒａｃｅ　ｉｎ　Ａｍｅｒｉｃａ　Ｂｅｙｏｎｄ　Ｂｌａｃｋ　ａｎｄ　Ｗｈｉｔｅ（黄色人種：黒人と白人の向こうにいる米国の人種）」と題した著書のあるフランク・Ｈ・ウー氏は、昔からさまざまな病気に地名が使われてきたという。「そうした言葉が問題となるのは、途方も無いストレスにさらされているときだからだ」
　だが、中国系飲食店に対する現代の見方にもあるように、昔からアジア系米国人といえば不潔という連想があるとウー氏はいう。対照的に「清潔さは常に倫理的な手本や善人、社会の良き一員であることの象徴とされる」「これは実際、病気やその由来だけにまつわる問題ではない。もっとずっと象徴的な問題だ」

■病気をめぐる中国系への攻撃
　アジア系米国人と病気を結びつけた顕著な例は、１９００年に腺ペストが流行し、サンフランシスコとハワイ・ホノルルの両方で起きた当局によるチャイナタウンの封鎖がある。
　カリフォルニア大学バークレー校法科大学院の講師、チャールズ・マクレーン氏は、差別と闘ってきた中国系米国人に関する著書を記している。同氏によると、当時の医療専門家らはアジア人は病気に感染しやすいと結論付けていたという。
　当時サンフランシスコのチャイナタウンは「非常に人口密度の高い地域だった」とマクレーン氏は語る。「市内の他の地域よりも罹患（りかん）率が高かったとは思わないが、見解が形成されていく上で大きな役割を果たした、そうした類いの固定観念があった」。最終的には、サンフランシスコ当局は中国系米国人が病気に感染しやすいことを証明する必要があったとの訴えを裁判所が認め、チャイナタウンへの強制検疫は終了された。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/03/25-12:47）

President Donald Trump's insistence on speaking of a Chinese virus has a dark historical precedent for some Asian Americans, who say his word choice is fueling an at times violent backlash.
Speaking daily on the global coronavirus pandemic, Trump has incessantly called COVID-19 the Chinese virus, with one photo even showing his notes in which he had crossed out clinical terms preferred by health professionals.
Asian American advocates say that such language plays into centuries-old stereotypes of the community as perpetually foreign and unclean -- and signals, incorrectly, that individuals of one ethnicity are responsible for spreading illness.
While US incidents appear to be fewer than in Europe, New York police said that a man last month chased and beat an Asian woman wearing a protective mask on the subway, calling her diseased.
On Thursday, civil rights groups launched a site for Asian Americans to report bias crimes linked to the pandemic to see how widespread the problem has become.
The site received 36 submissions in its first 24 hours, said Manjusha Kulkarni, executive director of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council.
She pointed to one incident where a middle school bully in the Los Angeles area punched an Asian American classmate in the head some 20 times, accusing him of carrying the coronavirus, and telling him to go back to China.
Kulkarni said she saw the violence as part of a wider history in the United States dating back to the Yellow Peril, when suspicions about Asians led the United States in 1882 to ban all Chinese immigration.
I definitely think it will get worse, partly because of the president's relentless effort for weaponizing hate against communities, Kulkarni said.
He has the bully pulpit. With that comes tremendous power. People listen to him, she said.
- Caught in US-China tensions -
Trump rose to power on vows to keep out Latin American and Muslim immigrants but has signaled that his intention in saying Chinese virus may be more about geopolitics.
It's not racist at all, he told a news conference. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.
The United States has wide-ranging tensions with China and Trump voiced anger over a Beijing official who promoted an unfounded conspiracy theory that the US military brought the virus to Wuhan, where cases were first reported.
China's foreign ministry has accused Trump of seeking to shift blame over his own response to the pandemic.
Frank H. Wu, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law and author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, acknowledged that diseases were long given geographical names and said it was fair game to criticize Beijing's actions.
What's important here isn't the intent. It's the consequences. And these words matter, because this is a time of incredible stress, Wu said.
Wu said that Asian Americans have long been associated with dirtiness, pointing to contemporary perceptions of Chinese restaurants.
Cleanliness has always been a metaphor for whether you're a morally deserving, good individual and part of a good community, he said.
So this isn't actually about just disease and the source of disease. It's symbolic of much, much more.
- Targeting Chinese over plague -
In vivid examples of the association of Asian Americans with disease, authorities in 1900 sealed off the Chinatowns of both San Francisco and Honolulu after outbreaks of the bubonic plague.
Charles McClain, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law who has written a book on the history of Chinese Americans' efforts against discrimination, said medical professionals at the time concluded that Asians were more susceptible to the plague.
It was a very crowded area, he said of San Francisco's Chinatown. I don't think morbidity was any worse there than it was any other part of the city. But there was this sort of stereotype that played a large role in forming opinion.
San Francisco was eventually forced to end its mandatory quarantine of Chinatown after a court agreed that authorities needed to prove that Chinese Americans were more likely to get infected.
While no US officials are suggesting that Chinese Americans are spreading the coronavirus, Asian Americans have repeatedly borne the brunt of wider international tensions.
Most notoriously, the United States detained 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps during World War II as it questioned their loyalty.
Wu said that Asian Americans still struggle in not being identified as foreigners.
You can be an assimilated, English-speaking Christian who has never been to China and has high sanitary standards. People still somehow associate you with dirtiness and disease.