Cassandra Au and her husband were forced to abandon their Cook Islands holiday when Australia closed its borders in early 2020, but the encroaching COVID-19 pandemic was not the only cause for alarm on the flight home.
"I said, 'Why is everybody on this plane giving me filthy looks?" Ms Au said.
More than two years after the pandemic began, the moment still sits with Ms Au.
"It's these regular microaggressions — this casual racism — which is quite wearing and exhausting to an Asian-Australian," she said.
Constant rate of racist attacks
Research presented in the Lowy Institute's latest Being Chinese in Australia report shows almost one in five Chinese-Australians are experiencing racist attacks, more than two years after the pandemic began.
Launceston social worker Yanqi Wang said her heritage was still a problem for some clients, who requested to work with her colleagues once they had communicated with her.
She said discrimination followed her after work as well.
"There was a guy riding a scooter towards us," Ms Wang said.
"There were also occasions with people saying, 'Go back to your own country' or saying ugly words like 'chinks'."
The Lowy Institute found that there had been a marginal drop in more subtle discrimination, where Chinese-Australians had reported being treated "differently or less favourably because of their Chinese heritage", from 37 to 35 per cent.
Under-reporting of racist incidents
However, the Asian Australia Alliance's Erin Chew said these figures might understate the problem, with many incidents going unreported due to language barriers and not knowing about reporting options.
"A lot of them suffer in silence or they don't understand where to go when they face an incident of racism," Ms Chew said.
"'Yellow peril' has existed since the first Chinese came into Australia for the gold rush period in the mid-1800s.
University of Adelaide Chinese studies professor Mobo Gao said these incidents were more commonly happening on public transport.
"You tend to see more Asian faces on buses and trains, in Adelaide for instance — because international students don't tend to have licences [or] drive," he said.
"You don't want to express these kinds of prejudices in your work unit or your neighbourhood — in public places, you're less likely to be accountable."
In the alliance's own research, Ms Chew said 61 per cent of racist incidents that were being reported were happening to Asian women.
"There is this view that Asian women are easier targets because we don't fight back, because we're a lot more meek and a lot more weak and we don't fight back against authority," she said.
"Racism will always continue because, in fact, it has never stopped."
