Asian International Students during COVID-19: Challenges and Implications


Yazhi Luo, University of Manitoba; Lori Wilkinson, University of Manitoba

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is considered by some as an event of the past, its influences have left indelible marks on all social institutions and the societies we live in. Since the first known COVID-19 case was initially diagnosed in Wuhan China, public opinion regarding Chinese people – and Asian people, by extension – has been profusely negative. Anti-Asian voices appeared online with harsh hashtags, and hate crimes against Asian people have increased, and these assaults speak volumes about the Western perception of Asian people as the “yellow peril”, a long-used anti-Asian trope. For Asian international students, COVID-19 has been a particularly difficult time. They need to juggle the drastic change from offline classes to online while being away from their families for years at a time, also being vigilant of their health and safety in an environment that distrusts and assaults Asian people. Today, they are being vilified due to unsubstantiated and false claims that they, as international students, are to blame for Canada’s housing crisis. Using findings from a series of in-person qualitative interviews conducted as part of a SSHRC-funded national project on anti-Asian racism and Asian international student experiences, this presentation explores the social and institutional challenges faced by Asian international students in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue that Asian international students, being one of the more precarious groups in the country with few provincial or national protections, are facing challenges at the intersection of academic hardships, lack of healthcare, precarious housing, and other social infrastructure failures, in addition to being victimized by various forms of racism. From the narrative interviews we conducted in Winnipeg as part of this study, we find that the pandemic has not only hindered the academic progress of Asian international students with institutional changes to how courses and exams operate, but also affected their personal lives as they would experience microaggression and verbal attacks because of their language and ethnicity. Some also experienced the stressful effects of the IRCC backlog of study permit and visa applications, which adds an extra layer of burden on their otherwise stressful environments. Using an intersectional framework, our presentation examines the unique challenges and that combination of factors that uniquely position students from Asia as they navigate their academic, social and economic lives in Canada. We learned from the students that they want their voices heard amongst the calls for caps on international students and the false promises that students are ‘sold’ when selecting Canada as their destination for study. In the conclusion, we discuss implications for future development in policies regarding international student wellbeing, such as guaranteeing public healthcare and providing easier access to medical, housing, economic, transportation, and mental health support.

This paper will be presented at the following session: