‘I Felt Like a Refugee.’ Chinese College Students Can’t Easily Return Home
Fearing xenophobia and worse if they remain in the U.S., students see China as a better alternative
Tufts University graduate student Ming Wu* was informed on March 11 that student residence halls should be evacuated within four days in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus. She immediately booked a flight home from Boston to China. She was afraid to stay and also afraid to go. While xenophobia increased in the United States, she didn’t have a place to live here. She also feared the laissez-faire attitude that some students and U.S. citizens had toward the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The United States [was] like Wuhan in mid-January,” Wu recalled of the week she tried to leave this country. At the time, similar to Wuhan, China — the first nation to report the outbreak — many people did not know about the seriousness of the virus. Those who did? They bought all the supplies, making face masks and cleaning products difficult to find.
Within 48 hours of booking that ticket, Wu’s flight was scheduled to take off. Her destination was Shanghai, and from there, she would need to transit in Taiwan. At that point, Wu still felt uncertain about her decision: whether it was safer to board a long flight that could…
