It’s not just the delta variant that makes Zhenghao Lin, a Chinese immigrant, nervous about returning to school next month.

Zhenghao, a rising senior at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, said he has been subjected to racist comments at school since he arrived in New York City as a fourth grader. His anxiousness about interacting with non-Asian peers only grew over the course of the pandemic.

“After what I’ve seen on social media and about the Asian American hate crimes in New York City, I do not feel safe going back to school physically,” Zhenghao said. “I may have to deal with the occasional bat-eater comment or, ‘You guys started it’ comment, or any of those microaggressions. If I go on the bus or take the subway, I might have to deal with those comments, too.”

After a rise in hate crimes against Asians in the spring, advocates have heard similar concerns from Asian American families and students about commuting from afar to school and what they may have to endure inside of the classroom when school buildings reopen Sept. 13. For some students, that anxious feeling is compounded by years of microaggressions — subtle, intentional or unintentional actions or statements about a marginalized group — or racist comments they’ve experienced in and outside of school.

In New York City this year, confirmed hate crimes against Asians jumped from four cases in February to 34 the following month, with just over half of those involving assault charges, according to the New York Police Department. The number of incidents has declined since the spring but remains higher than the same period last year.

Read the full article about Asian American students' concerns by Reema Amin at Chalkbeat.