This page includes selected resources for learning the facts about COVID-19, including its disproportionate impact on people of color, and provides information on interrupting related racisms, microaggressions, and xenophobia aimed at people of color and other marginalized communities. Let us know if you have suggestions for additional resources.
NOTE: This content was taken offline in May 2023 and is no longer being updated.
Portions of the guide are being kept here privately for archival purposes. --Susan Vega García
COVID-19 racism is anti-Chinese and anti-Asian scapegoating and xenophobic reactions, including fear, exclusion, harassment, microaggressions, and other racist behaviors related to the COVID-19 public health epidemic.
- Also includes inappropriate "jokes," innuendos, suggestions that any/all Chinese and members of other Asian communities are responsible for or suspected of having this illness and should be avoided.
Whether "intended" to be hurtful or not, the reality is that the impact of these sorts of "jokes" is very hurtful and helps spread misinformation.
Note: This box is copied on numerous guides. For more info on coronavirus racism and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and other marginalized groups, see our full COVID-19, Race, and Racism guide.
Here are a few helpful resources focused on facts and on recognizing & addressing racism and microaggressions related to COVID-19i. There is a rapidly growing body of literature on this emerging topic.
Note: This box is copied on numerous guides. For more info on coronavirus racism and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color and other marginalized groups, see our full COVID-19, Race, and Racism guide.
Sadly, there is a whole history of exclusion of the Chinese people and other Asian communities from the US, as well as exclusionary treatment within the US. Here are a few books on those topics.
Barbed Voices: Oral History, Resistance, and the World War II Japanese American Social Disaster by 
China Through American Eyes: Early Depictions of the Chinese People and Culture in the US Print Media by 
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by 
The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America by 
Displaced - Manzanar, 1942-1945: the Incarceration of Japanese Americans by 
Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion by 
Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States by 
Yellow Peril! An Archive of Anti-Asian Fear by 
The Yellow Peril: Dr. Fu Manchu & the Rise of Chinaphobia by Updating of this list of news articles discontinued after June 2020.
Recent data show that communities of color are at much higher risk of being infected and dying from COVID-19. Social impacts to these communities may also differ. Here are recent articles and data on these important emerging topics.
Iowa Communities
National Communities
