Despite recent reports by the National Asian American Survey of the Asian Pacific American community’s abandonment of the Republican party, one group of Chinese Americans are excited for the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency.
Days before the election, California-based grassroots group Chinese Americans For Trump (CAFT) chartered planes to fly banners across different cities with slogans in support of the Republican presidential candidate, and organized a gathering outside of Trump Tower on Monday, the South China Morning Post reported.
The organization, created out of the fervor surrounding this election, stems from a WeChat group started by David Tian Wang in June 2015, according to Vice. Originally, it only had 100 members, but current estimates show 6,000 members, 95 percent of them first-generation immigrants from mainland China.
Wang, a 32-year-old who calls himself an independent investor, told Vice that he believes most Chinese Americans agree with an overwhelming majority of Trump’s political stances – including his pro-gun and anti-illegal immigrant policies.
“Members of CAFT and other members of Chinese American society, we are pretty much 99 percent [in agreement] with what Trump said. Not 100 percent. What’s the 1 percent? The recent news of what he said something about women,” Wang told Vice. “I don’t think anyone would agree with that, but you got to look at the big picture. It’s either that or having Hillary as president.”
A key rallying point of the group is its stance on higher education. Wang said CAFT opposes race-based affirmative action, and said the practice – which saw victory in June in Fisher v. University of Texas – makes it difficult for Asian American students to attend certain institutions.
Vice spoke to another CAFT member, 41-year-old Virginian professor of computer engineering Wei Zhang, who expressed concerns over a recent California bill – a healthcare version of which was passed – that would have broken up the umbrella term “Asian American” to include a wider range of ethnicities.
Though CAFT remains hopeful, a study released in October by the Universities of Maryland, California-Irvine, California-Riverside and California-Berkeley found that 10 percent of Asian American respondents said they’d vote for Trump, while 59 percent said they support Hillary Clinton.
