What does it mean to be Asian?

This has been the question in my mind for a long time. Interestingly, I was being identified and called an Asian much more often than "Chinese" in the U.S. So much so that it starts to have me question myself whether I should self identify as Asian or Chinese. Maybe for most people, they cannot tell the difference between me and another person of Asian descent. I still remember being called another Asian colleague's name at graduation ceremony. Being Asian or Chinese is not easy, especially when there is prominent racial tension between the Whites and Blacks. Asians are often caught in-between or being criticized as the helpers of the powerful Whites. In reality, being Asian is complex and it involves unique challenges of being called the "model minority" and "perpectual foreigners", and in addition, the impossibility to tackle the assumptions that people make about us. With the Trump administration calling Covid-19 the "Chinese virus", "Kung flu', or the "Chinese plague", not only did many Asians face verbal and physical attacks, I see the worst in history that being Asian constitutes ideological identity threat, so much so that some Asians start to defend themselves and say that they are not "Chinese". It has never felt so unsafe about being Chinese before in my life. As such, I created a project for investigating Sinophobia and Covid-19. And with the help of a research assistant, I created a website about this project. The project was presented at AERA 2021 virtually, and some of the content was mentioned in the Journal of Asian Communication in Spring 2021.