For Asian Elders, Shopping for Food Is Self-Care
Recent violence has been aimed at Asian seniors while they are doing the most essential of business: buying groceries
Before working from home became the new normal, I looked forward to going into my office in San Francisco on Wednesday mornings. At lunchtime, I would walk a few blocks to a vibrant farmers market at United Nations Plaza to buy a bunch of gai lan or a bag of tangerines. The square hummed with a babel of languages. Vendors sold Buddha’s hand citron next to purple shiso leaves, alongside tamales and pumpkin pies.
That’s why the recent images of attacks on elderly Asian Americans have hit close to home. In one video, a gray-haired Chinese woman, her eyes swollen and purple, held an ice pack to her head. Seventy-five-year-old Xiao Zhen Xie was at a corner on Market Street in San Francisco at 10:30 a.m. when she was punched in the head. A few minutes earlier, an 83-year-old Vietnamese man was attacked nearby while buying vegetables.
Such videos have become numbingly commonplace, but these particular images were a punch to my gut. Not just because the crimes were so horrific, but also because I recognized the streetscape. It was right by my beloved farmers market. As with many of the attacks on Asian American elders, the victims were out doing the most essential of business: buying food.
The official name of this conglomeration of stands near San Francisco City Hall is the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market. It’s independently owned by a co-op of growers and was created to make fresh food accessible for low-income residents of San Francisco’s Tenderloin, a neighborhood that might otherwise be a food desert. Some of the farmers are originally from Laos, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and they sell fruits, vegetables, and herbs that reflect their foodways. Several of the tents have handwritten signs taped to their poles announcing “We accept EBT.” Many of the customers are elderly Asians — somebody’s grandmother or grandfather.
It’s not just the poor or the recently immigrated who are at risk when they shop. One year ago, actor Tzi Ma was the target of racist verbal harassment in the parking lot of a Whole Foods in Pasadena, California. Physical attacks on…
