Blue Shield of California Hate is a Virus

China Virus. Kung-Flu. When our nation’s leaders began referring to COVID-19 using inflammatory names like these, violence against the AAPI community rose. In the midst of a global pandemic, hate became one of the biggest viruses our country had to face.

Since hate is a “virus” that affects the health and safety of Americans everyday, BSC as a healthcare provider chose to stand up and intervene. This film is a statement that hate is indeed a health risk and urged viewers to stand with the AAPI community against its spread.

We Stand for Equality

We learned that underrecognized groups and ESL-speakers often feel uncomfortable reporting crime due to feeling dismissed by authorities who don’t speak their language or a fear of law enforcement. Despite being from vastly different backgrounds, they’re often lumped into one group, leading to reductive stereotypes than can cause harm.

As a member of the AAPI community, it was important to me to create a film that did not speak to Asians as a monolith but as the diverse people that we are. There are over 2,300 languages and dialects spoken by 4.46 billion people in Asia alone. There are languages spoken by Pacific Islanders. Languages spoken on other continents. As a California-based healthcare company, we strove to connect with as many members of the AAPI community within our state as possible.

CREATIVE TEAM:

GCD // Sinan Dagli
CW // Julia Waicberg
AD // Sarah Noel Ross
My role // Concept Creation, Art Direction, Design, Production, Post-Production