When I first found out my parents were voting for Trump in the 2020 Election, saying that I was shocked would be an understatement. However, upon hearing their reasonings for why they were supporting Trump, I was not as shocked — disappointed, but not surprised. I have always thought of my parents as apolitical or moderate, considering they never talked about politics with me until this year. Funnily enough, I found out my parents supported Trump when my mom came into my room one evening as I was doing homework, plopped a gaudy-looking mask on my desk spangled with American-themed motifs, and said, “I got the family matching masks so that all of us could wear it together when we go to vote for Trump at the polls.”
You can probably imagine the horror on my face that came about when her words finally registered. As news of Biden’s electoral victory spread across America and eventually the rest of the world, millions of people celebrated Biden’s victory and the end of Trump’s reign. However, among those who were disappointed by Trump’s loss were the Vietnamese conservatives. Overall, Asian-Americans have largely voted for progressive agendas and policies, which tend to fit the Democratic Party’s stances. However, many Vietnamese Americans — particularly first-generation, older immigrants with low English proficiency — had become more radically conservative, sympathizing with pro-Trump views. My parents would fit the description here. In the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey conducted over the summer, Vietnamese Americans were the only Asian American group to express more support for Trump (48%) than Biden (36%).
Vietnam has long held a sense of deep distrust against China, spanning thousands of years before the French occupied and colonized the country. Vietnam has long resisted Chinese colonization efforts and the animosity has remained to this day, even when relations between the two countries were normalized in 1991. Many Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans fear that one day, China may potentially swallow up Vietnam unless a strong leader stands up to them. Hence why Trump is such an appealing politician to them, specifically to the older generation which predominantly consists of refugees who arrived in the US following the Vietnam War and who still have fresh memories of the persecution they faced under the communist regime.
In the past four years of Trump’s presidency, he has taken a hawkish stance toward China, claiming that the country will “pay a big price for what they’ve done to the world.” This kind of rhetoric and stance towards China has given Trump the “big, strong man” the Vietnamese community believed they needed. The experiences the older generation, in particular, had faced often pulled them toward the Republican Party because of the Republicans’ strong rhetoric against communism.
“Even the name of the Democratic Party, ‘Đảng Dân chủ,’ brings up the old history of those groups that supported the eventual victory of the Communist Party, including Đảng Dân chủ Việt Nam,” Dr. Anh-Thu Bui, chair of the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization’s Election Committee, said. “The old Republic of Vietnam, ‘Việt Nam Cộng hòa,’ is the old country that no longer exists, for which the Vietnamese refugees abroad still yearn. The Republican Party is translated into ‘Đảng Cộng hòa,’ the same name as the old republic, with clear favorable association.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged and the virus outbreak was traced back to Wuhan, China, anti-Asian American sentiment and hate crimes spiked dramatically and continued for the next several months. Trump’s anti-China rhetoric and use of controversial terms such as “the China virus,” “Chinese virus,” “China plague,” “Kung flu,” and “Wuhan Virus” did not help with the anti-Asian American sentiments and in fact, seemed to only make it worse. This did not only affect individuals of Chinese descent; individuals coming from other Asian descents have experienced such hate despite not being Chinese or having any Chinese ancestry. In an August mandate made public in October, experts from the United Nations cited cases of hate incidents toward Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic. “
Racially motivated violence and other incidents against Asian-Americans have reached an alarming level across the United States since the outbreak of COVID-19,” experts said. Verbal harassment comprised the majority of the incidents, but racially-motivated incidents included — vandalism, physical attacks, and refusal of service and access. While UN experts noted that they “do not wish to prejudge the accuracy of information” made available to them, they were particularly concerned about the situation, especially since Asian American women reportedly make up the majority of the victims.
Many people have spoken up about the issue with Trump’s anti-China rhetoric and the surge in hate incidents, specifically how his rhetoric has been “seemingly legitimizing” the phenomenon. Surprisingly, while most American-born Asians have reacted negatively to Trump’s coronavirus rhetoric, some older Vietnamese Americans are enthused by it, even parroting some of his xenophobic phrases online despite the fact his attitude seemingly foments anti-Asian sentiments. Additionally, Terry Nguyen, a writer for Vox, found in her reporting on immigrant Asian communities that some Vietnamese immigrants “who might not understand the nuances of racism in America felt threatened by the social unrest and looting in cities” during the period in which the Black Lives Matter protests were occurring. Some even participated as counterprotesters at local Black Lives Matter rallies, which occurred simultaneously with the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes spurred on by COVID-19 — which was also branded as the “China virus” by Trump. This may seem counterintuitive for a minority group that belongs under the Asian-American category, a category of people who have been facing racially-motivated attacks and incidents that are seemingly legitimized by the very same leader they idolized.
Additionally, the Vietnamese-English language barrier has only made it increasingly difficult for some older generation Vietnamese-Americans to fully comprehend the racism that’s been occurring, leaving it to their younger, more progressive family members to educate them (or at least attempt to). The language barrier has also made it difficult for immigrants to avoid misinformation or news that feeds into their confirmation bias. Facebook and biased Vietnamese-language news programs are often the sources of their misinformation. The language and culture barriers have already previously alienated older Vietnamese Americans from their younger family members. The stark political divide among a war-torn generation and their children, rooted in hate, misunderstanding and trauma, has only caused further division between the generations.
In conclusion, many older Vietnamese immigrants believe that Trump’s anti-China rhetoric is enough for their support, thinking that he’s the only hope for Vietnam against China. They believe that Biden is soft on China by comparison and that the Democratic party is more susceptible to communist ideas based on the party’s certain socialized policies. Knowing my parents and assuming other older generation Vietnamese Americans have similar mindsets and experienced similar situations to them, it will be hard to undo the trauma they’ve undergone back in their homeland and to change their minds. Perhaps all we can do now is to agree to disagree and hope our beliefs don’t tear us apart.