UCLA Student Quits School After YouTube Anti-Asian Rant

"Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA"

A UCLA student whose anti-Asian rant on YouTube made national headlines said Friday she plans to leave the university.

In an apology letter sent to the Daily Bruin, the campus newspaper, Alexandra Wallace wrote that the video has led to "the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats and being ostracized from an entire community.''
  
"Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA,'' she wrote.
  
Wallace sent the letter on the same day the university announced it would not be taking any disciplinary action against her.
  
In her three-minute video, Wallace lashes out at Asian students, using a fake Asian accent to chastise students who use their cell phones in the library.
  
"In America, we do not talk on our cell phones in the library,'' she says.
  
In the video, she also laments that large numbers of Asian people, whom she described as relatives of students, descend on the university area on weekends.
  
"It's seriously without fail. You will always see old Asian people running around this apartment complex every weekend,'' she says. ``That's what they do. They don't teach their kids to fend for themselves.''
  
"If you're gonna come to UCLA, then use American manners,'' she says on the video.
  
In her letter to the Daily Bruin, Wallace said she was trying ``to produce a humorous YouTube video,'' but she instead ``offended the UCLA community and the entire Asian culture.''
  
"I am truly sorry for the hurtful words I said and the pain it caused to anyone who watched the video,'' she wrote. ``Especially in the wake of the ongoing disaster in Japan, I would do anything to take back my insensitive words. I could write apology letters all day and night, but I know they wouldn't erase the video from your memory, nor would they act to reverse my inappropriate action.’’

Copyright CNS - City News Service
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