Mary Anne Foo

Mary Anne Foo is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA), a Garden Grove based nonprofit that provides economic, social, and health support for underserved communities. Mary Anne has two videos below—one focused on COVID-19’s impact on the AAPI community here in Orange County, and the second a reflection on the Black Lives Matter protests and ongoing systemic racism.

Reflections on COVID-19

KEYWORDS: Orange County, Asian, Asian American, Santa Ana, Chinatown, Chinese, Cambodian, Mental health, business, unemployment, racism, anti-Asian sentiments, civic engagement, history, COVID, voting,

Interview Transcript – Reflections on COVID-19

So Santa Ana—a long time ago, Orange County was made up of a lot of farms, and prior there were a lot of Japanese farmers. There’s also a history of the Chinese here, too. So prior, Orange County was pretty diverse with agricultural workers and others. Once World War II hit, and then there was a lot of industrialization and less farming and more getting ready for war and things like that. A lot of Asians left because they were pushed out. But prior to that, Chinatown was in Santa Ana. And what happened was there were white community members who wanted the Chinese out. So they said, “The Chinese carry TB [tuberculosis], there’s all this stuff.” So they burnt Chinatown down and chased the Chinese out. And the same happened during World War II, where they chased the Japanese out, Japanese farmers and others. And so Santa Ana had a strong history of having Asians there, helping to develop Santa Ana. Now today, Santa Ana is a mixture of more of the Latinx community, more of the history of  Latinos is coming in and doing the same thing—agricultural work and other things. And then part of Santa Ana also has Little Saigon. And so we saw a lot of, when refugees came, they settled in Santa Ana. So a lot of Cambodians and a lot of Vietnamese. In Santa Ana, there’s Minnie Street, where there was a large Cambodian population because it was the only affordable area for Orange County. So you saw this mixture of community members there, Asian and Latino. 

[Community Concerns During COVID]

We’ve seen a really huge increase in mental health. People are feeling really a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression. People have lost businesses, we’ve had people want to commit suicide, because they’ve just lost their business and had to shut down. As well as people are afraid to go out because of the anti-Asian American sentiment, [of] people blaming the community for COVID. And so we’re seeing businesses damaged, we’re seeing people attacked, people yelled at. And so you see this, more isolation. And people are afraid. So our mental health issues have really gone up. And also our workforce development services have really increased because people have lost their jobs, they’ve lost their businesses, and they’re not sure how to access unemployment or EDD services because it’s not in [their] language. It’s in English or Spanish only. And so we’ve seen a lot of help that we’ve had to do that way.

[Anti-Asian Racism During COVID]

So we’ve seen, I can’t remember the last numbers nationally, but there have been so many reported hate crimes and hate incidences nationally. Right now for Orange County, we’ve seen an increase where a lot of people have been attacked, or things are said to them. Or if they’re outside or if they’re at a store that’s outside a concentrated Asian area people are blaming them for COVID. And some stores have also had their windows shattered and notes taken out. In Huntington Beach there was an Asian family who got a letter saying, “This is from your neighbors. Get out. You caused this all.” So a lot of things like that. There’s a lot of that going on. 

[Final Thoughts for the Community]

My future advice is [to] really understand how civic engagement and policy affects everything. You might be interested in health, you might be interested in education, in mental health, but policy affects everything. Voting affects everything. When we first started OCAPICA I remember there was a policymaker that said, “Why should I listen to you? You’re people don’t vote?” I was so mad and I was just like, you know what? Not only are people going to vote, we’re gonna vote you out. And  we did, we voted him out. And it’s that voting equals power. The other is really dream big. Because there’s so many people who are going to say you can’t do that, or that’s not right. Or don’t even try that. That’s never worked. Don’t believe it. You know better and just try because I had so many people when I started out [say] “Oh, that’ll never work. Asians don’t work together.” And I’m like, “Let’s just try and if we fail, we’ll try again and we’ll try different ways.” Don’t let people tell you something’s not going to work. Just try. And if it fails, there’s so many things you learn from it.

Interviewers: Phuc Duy Nhu To and Vincent Nguyen

Reflections on BLM Protests

KEYWORDS: Orange County, Asian, Asian Americans, Chinese, Japanese, racism, anti-Asian sentiments, anti-Blackness, Black Lives Matter, BLM Protests,

Interview Transcript – Reflections on BLM Protests

You know, I’m fourth generation, so my family’s been here since 1861. And we were in Northern California, north of Sacramento. And that’s where a lot of the Asians first went because of the farmlands and because of gold. And so I’m half Chinese, half Japanese. And even though I’m fourth generation—and I was born here, my parents were born here, my grandparents were born here, my great-grandparents came here when they were young—we were treated really bad. And we had a lot of racism, and I had a lot of racism, growing up. And we had the Ku Klux Klan, and they used to chase me and everything. And so I was really ashamed of being Asian. I just wanted to live.

[Racism Faced by Asian American Communities] 

When we started over 20 years ago, it was really in response to a lot of the hate crimes that were occurring against Asians. And so, at the time, Thien Minh Ly had been murdered through a hate crime. He had been stabbed multiple times in Tustin High School. He was skating at the tennis courts, and two white supremacists killed him. And that had happened. Also, at the same time, Asian American students—high school students and UCI students—were being stalked and harassed by the police and photos were being taken of them. And placed in this book [of] suspected gang members. These were honors students, you know. So if you see—you’re both at UC Irvine—on Culver, you would see every Asian American, especially male students who were in a Honda Civic were stopped, placed on the ground, and [hands] tied behind their back. And we were seeing—in Anaheim, Fountain Valley—all this was happening. 

[Reflection on Black Lives Matter]

I think the Asian community really needs to self reflect on its own anti-Blackness that’s in the community, also our racism towards Blacks and our racism towards each other. We have to look at our own history, and how it’s so similar to African Americans, historically. But also I think there has to be a lot of unlearning around some of the things that we carry around anti-Blackness. But also we need to be educated on [the] history of civil rights and different things. Especially our first generation. You know, African American stood up for refugees and immigrants. The first African American senator was against the Chinese Exclusion Act. Time and time again the African American community has stood up for us. Yes, we’ve had different conflicts, and there’s racism and discrimination on both sides. But we have to really unlearn a lot and have deeper conversations, to AAPI communities’ role and being an ally, not to take up space and not to take away from the voices of Black Lives Matter. But be allies, and how do we support that? How, as organizations, do we become allies and stand up so that community members who may be afraid feel brave enough. We know a lot of 1.5 second generation business leaders who are afraid to say, “We stand with Black Lives Matter.” Because maybe older generations are like, “You don’t do that.” And so as organizations, if we all come together, we’re stronger in our voice, and we stand together and say, “We need to address this all together, and we need to be very honest about what’s happening, and we need to stand up because this is just wrong.” It’s just wrong. Just because we’re not being targeted right now—when Black Americans are affected, everybody is affected. And we could stand and say, ”Oh, well, it’s not us.” But yes, it is us because when one population, when one community is affected, it affects us all. When there’s racial discrimination, when there’s economic injustice, or all the different social justice issues. It impacts all of us. 

[Final Thoughts on the Community]

I am really inspired by the young folks and the future generations right now. With all of the protesting, and all of the gatherings for Black Lives Matter, and seeing these young people who have taken leadership in that. I’m just so hopeful for the future because they are pushing—worldwide, but especially in the U.S.—they’re pushing for change and they’re looking at racial injustice. And they’re finally, I think, pushing so many systems to make change. So the future generations are our biggest hope, our brightest hope. Because they’re the ones who are going to change all the systemic racism and all of these structural issues that had been going on for years that there’s been complacency about.

Interviewers: Phuc Duy Nhu To and Vincent Nguyen

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