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By APD writer Alice
With Democrat Joe Biden's triump in the November 3 US presidential election, the Asian-American community is hoping for a more united country, after Trump repeatedly called the novel coronavirus as "Chinese virus", making them exposed to adverse experiences because of their race or ethnicity.
Race is considered one of the overarching issues of Donald Trump's presidency, with strict immigration policies and many controversial statements from the White House boss, leaving a large number of Americans of African, Latin and Asian origins were affected.
According to Sylvia Lee, head of the Arizona Democratic Party Asian American Pacific Islander Caucus, Trump had incited racism and advocated this view. As a result, more and more groups of people did not hesitate to come out and express their racist opinions.
Meanwhile, Biden is trying to improve the climate when it comes to race relations and immigration," the 62-year-old woman said, adding that the President-elect’s selection of Kamala Harris, a female senator whose mother is an Indian and father is a Jamaican, as his running mate demonstrated he is very inclusive.
Echoing Lee’s view, Cliff Li, executive director of the National Committee of Asian American Republicans in Washington, said Vice President-elect Harris, who has become the first Asian-American ever to touch this position, will understand difficulties this community is facing as new immigrants, he said.
Since he left China for the US in 1990, Li has remained loyal to the conservatives. He even served as a member of the Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee for Trump's campaign in 2016. But this year he decided to vote for Biden.
Amid the pandemic, Trump called the SARS-CoV-2 the “Chinese virus”. This action was really irresponsible because it hurt Asians in the US and fueled hatred against Asian Americans as a whole, he said.
According to a recent survey by Pew Research Center, about 4 out of 10 Americans said that people expressed more racist views about Asians than before Covid-19, a disease that first broke out in Wuhan, China late last year.
The survey results also showed that 31% of Asian adults said they had been defamed or joked about because of their ethnicity or race since the outbreak of the pandemic, compared to 21% of black adults, 15% of Hispanic adults and 8% of white adults.
Asians are the fastest growing racial group among voters in the US, with more than 11 million voters qualified to vote this year, according to the center. They form an important group of voters in some battleground states such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, which turned to Biden this time.
"We look forward to Joe Biden helping the country come together, work together to find common ground," Li said, though admitting he disagrees with many of the President-elect's policies such as his proposed tax hikes and health care plan. Li hopes the Republican Party will continue to maintain a majority in the Senate to check Biden.
Voting for Biden, Anna, a Vietnamese American living in California, hopes that the new administration will help the US build back better and bring the country out of the current formidable division.
“I hope Americans will unite to help their country quickly go through the pandemic and develop again", she said.
(APD NEWS)
