The woman covered her nose and mouth with a manila folder as she ushered the people behind to go ahead of her in the line. “I don’t want to be after her.” September of 2021 - six months after the unconscionable shootings of the Asian massage parlor workers in Atlanta, as well as the countless other violent and deadly crimes against the AAPI community, Nicole Yun got the confirmation she needed. The small city in Appalachian Virginia where she had called home for the past fifteen years had received the memo: Asians were to blame for the pandemic.
In …