Asian American Students Took Portraits Holding Posters with Insensitive Statements They Have Encountered

In October 2016, The New York Times editor Michael Luo, who is an Asian American, posted a tweet, where he described how while walking with his family in Upper East Side in NYC he met an aggressive woman who told him to go back to China: “Go back to China…go back to your f—ing country,” she said. Luo added a hashtag #thisis2016 to his post.

The post soon became viral on social networks and inspired other Asian Americans to share the cases when they have encountered similar aggression. A flashmob #thisis2016 was started, where the users quoted intentional or unintentional insulting statements they had heard in their address.

In late November, the students of Bowdoin College joined the flashmob: the Students Association Facebook page features photographs where they are holding posters with insulting or unpleasant statements they had heard from the others. These photographs quickly went viral and had over 37,000 likes.