Trigger Warning: In this article I cover examples of racism and pandemics.

Hate crimes against Asians and Asian-American citizens in the U.S. have become such a persistent problem during this novel Coronavirus pandemic that New York attorney general, Letitia James, launched a hotline for people to report such hate crimes, and other forms of discrimination. Similar acts of racist violence have been documented in the U.K. and Egypt, and I have a bad feeling that other currently unreported incidents have happened in additional countries.

This upsetting xenophobia against Asian people was sparked (I would argue intentionally) by our expired cheeto-in-chief, #45, who insisted on publicly calling the Coronavirus (COVID-19) the “Chinese virus.” While the first COVID-19 cases have been traced to Wuhan, China, a city of about 11 million people, associating this virus with the entire country of China has only given bigots around the world permission to mistreat all people of Asian descent.

It is terrifying that people of color are dealing with violence and ignorance sparked by a powerful national leader.

Like you, I have been obsessively following news coverage of the Coronavirus as things develop and, like you, I have heard politicians and journalists compare Coronavirus to the Spanish Flu.  Quick refresher, the Spanish Flu was a severe strain of influenza that became a worldwide pandemic almost one-hundred years ago. From 1918 to 1919, the Spanish Flu infected around 500 million people–a third of the human population at the time–and caused the deaths of 50 million people worldwide.  This all took place at the tail-end of World War I, in which only about 40 million people died. Hearing #45, politicians, and laypeople name Corona for (and blame it on) Chinese people, and seeing comparisons made between the current pandemic and the Spanish Flu, I began to wonder, how did the Spanish Flu get its name?

A Brief History of the Spanish Flu (1918 – 1919)

Here’s a question, what country do you think the Spanish Flu came from?  If you guessed Spain, then nice deductive reasoning, but nope! While historians and scientists debate exactly where the Spanish Flu originated, it is agreed that the first cases did NOT start in Spain.  Some posit that it came from Britain or China, but the first documented case of Spanish Flu came from an army base in…Fort Riley, Kansas.

Yes, that rectangular state smack-dab in the middle of the US-of-A was very likely the birthplace of the “Spanish” Flu.  In March of 1918, Private Albert Gitchell entered the army hospital complaining of flu-like symptoms. That afternoon, over 100 of his soldiers fell ill with similar symptoms.  Later that month, over 80,000 US soldiers were deployed to Europe to aid the Allies in the first World War, bringing the influenza virus with them.

So why was this flu called the Spanish Flu when it probably came from Kansas?  During WWI, Ally nations censored news coverage of the flu pandemic because they wanted the public to stay pumped up for winning the war. News stories about continent-hopping super flus tend to bum people out.  Spain, however, was neutral during the war. Spanish newspapers reported on the flu pandemic frequently especially after their king, Alfonso XIII, became infected. People in other countries saw Spain’s extensive reporting on the flu, and wrongly assumed that the virus originated in Spain.  The UK ran with this, coining the term, “Spanish Influenza” and outright blaming Spain for causing the virus. A 1918 UK newspaper article once read, “… the dry, windy Spanish spring is an unpleasant and unhealthy season,” and implied that Britain’s comparatively rainier spring would protect Britons from the virus–it didn’t.

I didn’t find any articles detailing anti-Spanish discrimination incidents resulting from Spain being blamed for the Spanish Flu–apparently Spaniards thought the disease had spread to them from France and derisively called it the French Flu—touché.

Even so, I think it is important to know that blaming an entire country, and ethnicity, for a deadly illness is nothing new.  It has happened before. And it has happened before to Chinese people.

The Bubonic Plague Outbreak in Honolulu, Hawaii (1899 – 1900)

In Honolulu, Hawaii, a Chinatown bookkeeper contracted bubonic plague and died.  Similar cases quickly spread throughout the Chinatown community. The Honolulu Board of Health treated all Chinese and Japanese Hawaiians as though they were the source of the outbreak–even though scientifically it’s rats and fleas that spread the disease to humans. The Board erected a cordon sanitaire around the Chinatown–this is a restrictive quarantine that permanently locks people inside of an infected area regardless of whether they are all sick.  Around 10,000 Chinese-Hawaiians were kept inside the quarantine zone. Long-held stereotypes associating Chinese people with uncleanliness made a resurgence in the surrounding neighborhoods.  Island officials sprayed Chinese homes with carbolic acid–a chemical that poisons when touched–threw out private property, and even forced residents to shower in public enclosures.

The discrimination reached a terrifying climax when officials set fire to a Chinatown home and the blaze spread to numerous other Chinese-owned houses.  The National Guard and white lay people initially tried to block Chinese families from escaping Chinatown as flames engulfed their neighborhood, before finally letting them exit the cordon sanitaire. Some 8,000 Chinatown residents lost their homes. In the aftermath, a local newspaper praised the fire as a success that wiped out the plague and cleared out valuable real estate.

It’s 2020, We Need to Do Better

I don’t think that we need to invest time, resources, and internet outrage into changing the name of the Spanish Flu to make up for past stigma, at least not right now while we’re dealing with the novel Coronavirus.  I just want to point out that when people (and US presidents) invent terms like “Spanish Flu” or “Chinese Virus” in the midst of a pandemic, it causes real human damage in a few ways:

  • It distracts us from identifying the scientific cause of the disease.
  • It diverts valuable resources into initiatives that harm, rather than help people.
  • It encourages nativistic policies and xenophobic discrimination.

Pandemics have never been named for entire countries, or blamed on entire ethnicities, with benign or scientifically accurate intentions.  This has only ever been done out of prejudice and nativism, with the intent to use existing public fear and bigotry to discriminate against marginalized groups of human beings.

Those of us who understand that otherizing illnesses is wrong need to make sure this never happens again.  We need to take a firm public stance against naming deadly diseases after nations or ethnicities in the future.  It’s 2020, we should know better by now. We need to educate our children, we need to contact our state representatives.  Who knows what pandemics we may face again in the future? We cannot let xenophobia poison our public discourse and harm our fellow humans.  We must not allow our political leaders to name illnesses of any kind for nations with millions of human beings who bleed red just like we do, get sick just like we do, and want to live healthy lives just like we do.

Thank you for reading. Take care of yourself, and your loved ones. Please see below for links to articles that offer guidance on positive ways to help decrease racism around COVID-19.

Editor’s Note: In the first publishing, I accidentally used epidemic and pandemic interchangeably.

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