Chinese in Trumppe: what do I do if my mother supports him?-New York Times International Life
Nearly half of Americans voted for Donald Trump, (Donald Trump). But it wasn't until more than a month ago that I saw a Trump supporter. In this liberal bubble on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, the notorious Trump fan is nothing more than urban legend: a white man with a skinny beard and a big vest with lots of guns in his arms. From time to time it becomes an Internet meme. When one says that many of Mexico's illegal immigrants are criminals and rapists, and suggests that Muslims may be registered (though he has since denied it), such people will also get votes. It was a ridiculous joke to me. His ideas run counter to the Bill of Rights, the part of the U.S. Constitution that ensures that goverment cannot deprive individuals of their rights. I don't think decent people should vote for Trump, and among Americans, decent people are in the majority. My friends bet Hillary Clinton's victory on sites like PredictIt.com, putting up a $1000 squeeze and hoping to at least double it. Even the few Republicans I know have voted for Hillary as far as I know.
So, three weeks before the election, I was unprepared to meet the first Trump supporter: my mother.
At first she sent me a picture of a plane flying on the blue sky with a flag with the words "CA Chinese Americans for Trump," a Chinese-American North American Trump campaign in California. I magnified the picture to make sure I had not misread the line of small words. Just the day before, I had just watched a video of a Korean-American student at Harvard University asking Trump a foreign policy question at a convention in New Hampshire last year, and Trump rudely asked him if he had come from South Korea. It seemed to imply that the student would question him only because he was not American enough. I Google "Chinese Americans for Trump," an organization that learned that Wang himself, as a green card holder, could not vote for a campaign initiated by Wang Ju-(David Tian Wang). But his campaign has resisted reform policies that may have a negative impact on Chinese-Americans. They strongly oppose the affirmative action bill, which could result in underrepresented minorities benefiting from institutions such as universities and sacrificing the rights of large groups (such as Chinese and Korean) that perform well; They even object to gender-free bathrooms that transgender people can choose for themselves.
I had to call about it, and it turned out that mom and I had a big fight on the phone.
"but did you watch the video and he said it was okay to sexually abuse a woman because he was a celebrity?" I asked with astonishment.
"of course, he would say that," she replied. "but he didn't do anything bad."
"can you name one thing that he did well?" I asked。
She can't tell. "I can tell you why I don't like Obama and Democrats," she replied.
I hung up the phone。 All this made it impossible for me to get over it all at once. My first reaction was to ask my family for help because they knew my mother and would not jump to conclusions on her. "you didn't believe me," I said in a Facebook group chat. "my mom's going to vote for Trump."
I thought everyone would be unbelievable and sympathetic. However, I received a cold response. "it's not surprising," they said. "my mom likes Trump, too."
"how did that happen?" I asked.
No one answered me.
I told myself it was just a nightmare. Never mind。 In a few weeks, I'll have a drink with a couple of friends on election night, Hillary will win, my family will never mention Trump again, and everything will be back to normal.
But it didn't turn out to be the case.
At the end of that fierce telephone dispute, my mother reminded me that it was a free country and that she could vote as she wished, regardless of my point of view. I don't know if my mother still has three aunts and six mothers to vote in the end. That's another problem. Some Chinese-Americans, like my dad, don't think it's a big deal to exercise the right to vote. Hillary Clinton won California by an overwhelming margin, so I guess in the end their votes didn't make any difference. The problem is that those ideas are not gone, and supporters of Trump are still spreading them in this country.
After Trump's victory, I've been waiting for my mom to call and show me Trump's victory. The next day, many of my alma mater students took to the streets and launched a massive parade, protest against Trump's victory. I wonder what she would say about it. But she didn't do that. My mother is not the kind of person who takes an election more seriously than her family.
But many Americans have done so. Immediately after the election, I saw many friends complain on social media about voting for Trump's family, and some even said they wanted to break up with them. In my message feed is full of "scum" and "not kiss" and so on. Some of them are Chinese, but most of them are not. In my house, we're not going to talk about this. I chose not to mention it, nor did my mother. Leaving aside political views, my mother has made great sacrifices over and over again to enable me to live my present life. I know she is a reasonable, selfless person. Her support for Trump won't make me forget that.
But over the next two weeks, I tried to figure out why she supported him.
In recent months, my mother's big tech company has cut off her medical benefits. She used to be free to see a doctor, but now it costs money, and she blames Obama's "bad" economic condition for the change. At the same time, she was unhappy with Obamacare's (Obamacare), arguing that she was subsidising it as a taxpayer and that health insurance was not cheap because of her relatively high income. "it's not fair," she told me. "I earned my day by the efforts of my youth. But those who play all day in college now have less money for health care than I do, and that's what I'm making up for. The United States should be a place where your efforts will pay off, and college dropouts should not benefit from their laziness. "
She is also reading articles on gossip websites and popular posts on Chinese social networks that claim Obama is the worst president in American history
"look, Ivanka Trump (Ivanka Trump) 's daughter speaks Chinese very smoothly. Reminds me of you! " She gave me a video of Trump's granddaughter singing children's songs, which I sang when I was a child. "this shows that the Trump family attaches importance to China."
Polls show that there are more ethnic Chinese voting for Trump than ever before in favor of the Republican Party, and that Chinese from different backgrounds have different motivations. I think one of the important factors is that Chinese immigrants feel the need to protect their families. My mother, like other immigrants, sacrificed a lot of things that non-immigrants are used to: family, friends, a common language, and, most importantly, a sense of belonging in order to come to this country. A view often heard in Chinese American families is that our parents have made so many sacrifices in order to make us live a better life. In turn, we need a beautiful future. In return-that means high-income, decent work, a family, and a couple of children. That's why they were so hard on us that they sacrificed their lives to make us live in a country full of opportunities. They will do everything they can to protect our chances.
As a result, those who survive will feel threatened by something beyond their control, for example, because of the so-called "bamboo ceiling," Asian-American businesses and other institutions in the United States are more difficult to develop than whites, which is why many Chinese parents (such as my father) eventually chose to return to work or do business in China and become "returnees". There is also the Affirmative Act, which in many cases actually reduces college places for American-born Chinese children.
I think another factor is that in China, the concepts of political correctness, multi-racial peace, and so on are not emphasized as part of children's education. Ethnic minorities in mainland China mark their national identity on their identity cards. Some words that may cause you to get fired in the United States are often fine here. China's ethnic diversity is far less diverse than that of the United States, so Chinese immigrants tend to be less enlightened about other races.
A series of controversial police shootings this year sparked riots and protests in many cities across the country, so my mother told me not to go out after 7 p. M.-what did she say, "what about the black and white fighting?" I live in Oakland, a city traditionally dominated by blacks. I remember not long after she moved here, she came to see me, and we walked down the street, and every time she saw a black man passing by, she pulled me to hide behind a parked car on the side of the road. "how can you live in such a place?" She asked me. "it's too dangerous." To be honest, her behavior disgraced me. "he's a student like me," I explained once. "he had finished his studies in the library and was going home for dinner. He won't shoot you. "
What does all this have to do with Trump? He took advantage of the anger and willingness to reform in many hard-working American social groups-not limited to disgruntled working-class and suburban whites-who felt they had paid too much to the goverment without getting what they deserved. He promised to suspend one of Mr. Obama's programs-taking 10,000 Syrian refugees this year and deporting millions of illegal immigrants-the ones often said to be the least deserving of affirmative action or universal health care. His campaign portrayed himself as an anti-hero persecuted by mainstream liberal media-an outsider who promised to overthrow the status quo. He's not afraid to say what he really thinks. It's a quality that makes the Chinese feel bad-but it also brings up some disturbing memories of childhood, and my parents say racist things. And my reaction is, "you can't say that"; They retorted, "I mean it. What can you do with me? "
In the eyes of many Chinese Americans who want to "save" their children, Trump points out a way to live. To support him, they would rather ignore his narrow and sexist mark, because blood is the number one thing in Chinese culture. Ironically, I didn't talk to my mom about the election at all in the next few days, precisely because of this kinship.
Our differences don't just disappear. One day, I telephoned my mother to say that I had no idea about the decision to go to medical school, and I wondered if it was worth the huge sacrifice. She told me cheerfully not to be too hard on herself. She said Trump's goverment was hiring 4000 new employees, meaning it was an excellent job opportunity, and she thought I should think about it. She sounds so happy, and I don't think she understands why supporting Trump is an insult to people like me. I'm a feminist, living in a community with Muslim, unregistered immigrants.
I can only hang up as soon as possible to calm myself down.
I almost started a career as an artist. Several of my friends are writers and circus actors. I remember the day Obamacare came into operation, and I was at dance school, watching two dance teachers register for the first time since they graduated from college. Because my mother works for a large company, under Obamacare rules, I can be covered by her health care until I'm 26, but I thought I'd become a writer when I was about to turn 30, without health care. What will we do then?
My father will tell me that my positive view of the affirmative action is childish. After all, I'm not paying for expensive private high school fees, or a lot of tutor hours and extracurricular activities. "you don't value our efforts," he would say, deciding that I wanted to give up my college place to a Latino or black student, though that was not what I meant.
Personally, I can't feel the strong desire to protect my Chinese counterparts, in part because I think I'm part of a larger community. My mother said that in her company, Indian bosses tend to favor Indian employees and belittle Chinese employees. Chinese bosses are the opposite, and these two groups are basically enemies. But my childhood education was to embrace and transcend such differences.
Like many young Americans around me, I want to be an enlightened, empathetic individual who, in addition to his personal struggle, is aware of the struggle of others. I don't want to be confined to the idea of party cutting. But while I understand the Chinese Americans who voted for Trump, I can't forgive them.
