Attacks on East Asian people living in the US have shot up during the pandemic, revealing an uncomfortable truth about American identity.
Though she was not born in the US, nothing about Tracy Wen Liu's life in the country felt "un-American". Ms Liu went to football games, watched Sex and the City and volunteered at food banks.
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the 31-year-old didn't think anything of being East Asian and living in Austin, Texas. "Honestly, I didn't really think I stood out a lot," she says.
That has changed. With the outbreak of the pandemic that has killed around 100,000 people in the US, being Asian in America can make you a target - and many, including Ms Liu, have felt it.
In her case, she says a Korean friend was pushed and yelled at by several people in a grocery store, and then asked to leave, simply because she was Asian and wore a mask.
In states including New York, California, and Texas, East Asians have been spat on, punched or kicked - and in one case even stabbed.
Whether they have been faced with outright violence, bullying or more insidious forms of social or political abuse, a spike in anti-Asian prejudice has left many Asians - which in the US refers to people of east or southeast Asian descent - wondering where they fit in American society.
"When I first came here five years ago, my goal was to adapt to American culture as soon as possible," says Ms Liu.
"Then the pandemic made me realise that because I am Asian, and because of how I look like or where I was born, I could never become one of them."
After her friend's supermarket altercation, she decided to get her first gun.
"I hope the world never comes to a day when we have to use that," she says, adding: "That would be a very, very bad situation, something I don't even want to imagine."
Authorities in New York City and Los Angeles say that hate incidents against people of Asian descent have increased, while a reporting centre run by advocacy groups and San Francisco State University says it received over 1,700 reports of coronavirus-related discrimination from at least 45 US states since it launched in March.
Police in at least 13 states, including Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Minnesota and New Mexico, have also responded to reported hate incidents.
Critics say those at the very top have made things worse - both President Donald Trump, and Democratic hopeful Joe Biden have been accused of fuelling anti-Asian sentiment to varying degrees with language they've used while talking about China's role in the outbreak.
And for many Asian Americans, it can feel as though, in addition to being targeted, their identity as Americans is being attacked.