To mask or not to mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic: how Chinese students in America experience and cope with stigma

Abstract

Chinese students in the U.S. are confronted with the double jeopardy of virus and stigma amid the COVID19. This study focuses on their choice and impact of mask wearing during this pandemic. How do they navigate and negotiate the troubling and contradictory directives about masks coming from their home and host countries during this pandemic? What are the impacts of their experiences on their attitudes towards the American society? Drawing from stigma theory, we argue that what Chinese students experience when it comes to mask wearing is an exemplar of how stigma is socially constructed by power. Through 30 semi-structured and in-depth phone interviews with Chinese students, we find that Chinese students cope with such stigma through various mechanisms, and most notably, through the counter-narrative of discrediting the American mainstream belief in the usage of masks. However, they harbored these thoughts privately. In addition, we conclude that escalating geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, coupled with the lack of social integration of Chinese students in America, will continue to alienate them, despite the subsequent destigmatization of mask-wearing in America.

Chinese Public’s Support for COVID-19 Surveillance in Relation to the West

“…It then evokes defensive mechanisms even for Chinese people who are critical of the government when communicating with other Chinese. Similar defensiveness has been observed in the pandemic, which further distanced people from Western information and generated greater support for the Chinese authority (Ma and Zhan 2020;Fan et al 2020).…”

“…4 However, it is problematic to assume that the public opinions are downstream effects of state propaganda and ignore the spontaneity and complicated social context that produces them. For example, although international students are away from the Chinese propaganda system's direct influence and many felt angry in January at the government cover-up, studies have found that many of these students became more accepting of China's disease control, nationalism, and even authoritarianism when the pandemic became rampant in their host countries (Ma and Zhan 2020;Fan et al 2020). Public discourse before the 2010s has an "overly rosy" imagining of Western society, precipitating side effects when people realize Western societies are simply not perfect (Huang and Yeh 2019).…”

Mask use, risk-mitigation behaviours and pandemic fatigue during the COVID-19 pandemic in five cities in Australia, the UK and USA: A cross-sectional survey

“…Early in the pandemic, people of Asian ethnicity reported racism and harassment, while others reported being suspected of criminal intent while wearing masks (Zine, 2020). The negative connotations of disease and identity concealment associated with masks in Western countries prior to the COVID-19 pandemic may have been further catalysed by rising geopolitical tension (Ma and Zhan, 2020) and early public health messages that actively discouraged mask use (Wang et al, 2020). Mandating mask wearing may eliminate this stigma by making it a mainstream behaviour (Betsch et al, 2020;Feng et al, 2020).…”

COVID-19-related stigma and its sociodemographic correlates: a comparative study

“…COVID-19 related stigma can lead to a range of negative consequences such as psychological stress [2], discrimination [18,39], health-related violence [8,42] and, worst of all, suicide [56] for affected populations including COVID-19 survivors, suspected or quarantined cases, and people returning from overseas. In addition, COVID-19-related stigma [25] could become a barrier to the control and prevention of COVID-19 because people who experience high levels of stigma are less likely to disclose their health status [2], thus deterring professional help-seeking behaviors [17], and refusing to take COVID-19 tests [19].…”