East Bay siblings take on xenophobia amid coronavirus with film

Asian Americans across the country have reported incidents of xenophobia amid the coronavirus pandemic, but a pair of siblings from the East Bay are hoping a film they created will remind people that “we are all in this together.”

Abey and Sabrina Lin are fourth generation Chinese-Americans who casted friends, family and those who made a difference in their life in the film entitled “Catching Love.”

“We didn’t want to just sit and do nothing,” Abey Lin who’s studying at the Beijing Film Academy said. “We tried to do what we could as artists and use the tools we had at hand.”

Together the siblings decided to battle the coronavirus in a different way by addressing the stigma and discrimination that’s spreading just as fast. 

“From the moment the virus spread beyond China, every second we walked in a public space you could feel that people were glaring at you,” high school senior Sabrina Lin said. “You could feel the tension.”

They came up with a simple concept: to remind people we are all human and not a virus. They even used their musical skills to produce the soundtrack.

“Our biggest hope and our goal is this film would help remind you of humanity,” Abey Lin said. “We’re all experiencing this together.”

The idea was to show how people who define themselves differently by their race, occupation, age or background are also similar stronger together as a single community.

“The virus does not discriminate and neither should we,” Abey Lin said.