What Is in a Name: The Covid-19 Virus Naming Variants and Their Impact on Chinese Canadian Community

Chinese Canadians have settled in Canada since as early as in 1788 (Lai, Leong “Chinatown Series – Toronto”). The first large scale of Chinese immigrants came to Canada during the Fraser River Gold Rush in the 1850s, followed by waves of Chinese railroad workers in the end of the 19th century. Most Chinese Canadians have changed their sojourner mentality to calling Canada home from the 1960s, the latest documented by researchers (Leong; Poy). While most Chinese Canadians see themselves as Canadians, but are they seen as ones? The COVID-19 Pandemic has once again taken this notion into spotlight. From anti-Asian racism, naming of the virus, and contesting Chinese Canadians as simply Chinese, the pandemic highlights the subtle, unconscious, and systematic discrimination against Chinese Canadians. In this presentation, I’ll discuss various names used to refer to the COVID-19 virus, specifically the ones related to race and origins, and reveal the anti-Chinese racism associated with these terms. I argue these terminologies, most often claim to have derived out of convenience or common sense, denote deep rooted racist classification and information practices.