Slant-eye mockery brings Hmong American child to tears in viral video

An emotional video showing a Hmong American child describing racist bullying at school has gone viral as attention grows around the persistence of a mocking gesture targeting Asians. In the clip, elementary school student Adi tells her mother that her classmates would pull their eyes back when they see other Asian kids. The video has sparked discussion about how gestures normalized by adults can filter down to children.

The video was recorded in late December 2025 after Adi returned home visibly upset, according to her mother, Christa Thao, who later shared the clip on her TikTok account. In the recording, Adi struggles to explain what happened before asking, “Why are people mean to Asians?” a moment that resonated widely as the video spread beyond TikTok to other social media platforms. Thao told People that the behavior involved classmates Adi believed were her friends and that it occurred repeatedly during the school day.

After posting the video, Thao contacted school administrators that night. In a follow-up TikTok update, she shared that the school responded the following morning, opened an investigation, met with the students involved and notified their parents. Thao said the school also put monitoring measures in place to address the situation moving forward.

The eye-pulling gesture has a long history as a racist insult directed at Asians, used to caricature physical features and mark differences. Because it relies on nonverbal mockery rather than explicit slurs, it is often dismissed even as it reinforces exclusion. Its repeated appearance in public and private settings shows how racial harassment can persist in subtle forms that still carry real consequences.

The attention surrounding Adi’s video comes as the same gesture has surfaced in recent public controversies involving adults, including a widely criticized incident in Finland that resulted in the removal of a Miss Finland titleholder. The recurrence of the gesture across different contexts has renewed focus on how actions often minimized as jokes can translate into real harm, particularly when they surface in everyday settings like schools.