Op-Ed: Republicans Celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
Author: Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel
This month, the Republican Party is proud to celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and the incredible achievements and contributions of Asian Americans to our great country. While we do, we also commit to redoubling our efforts to grow our party of opportunity and represent Americans of all backgrounds. With midterm elections just around the corner, there has never been a more important time to vote for common sense. As the radical Democrat Party moves further and further left, the Republican message of economic growth, law and order, and quality education is winning.
Asian Americans are leading the charge in many ways. Last year, one of the parents who called out the Loudoun County School Board for inserting critical race theory into schools was a mother who fled communist China. This outrage has translated into political action already, with Asian American parents leading the successful effort to recall San Francisco school board members for trying to push critical race theory into classrooms.
The fight for quality education in our country doesn’t stop at the local level. Biden’s embrace of woke policies and divisive critical race theory has seeped into higher education. In February 2021, Biden’s Justice Department failed to protect Asian Americans from discrimination, dropping a Trump-era lawsuit against Yale University for race-based discrimination in college admissions. In December, the Biden administration urged the Supreme Court not to hear a case alleging Harvard University “intentionally discriminates” against Asian Americans. Ultimately, this sort of race-based decision-making not only hurts the Asian American community but is also deeply unpopular, with a recent Pew Research poll showing 63% of Asian Americans do not think race should be a factor in college admissions.
With this in mind, it’s not unsurprising that 43% of the AAPI community see race relations as “getting worse” under Biden. More alarmingly, during Biden’s first year in office hate crimes targeting Asian Americans increased nationally by 339 percent. In Democrat-run cities in particular there were huge spikes in anti-Asian hate crimes, with San Francisco seeing a 567 percent increase and New York City seeing a 361 percent increase last year. Democrat soft-on-crime policies have a devastating real-world impact.
To top it off, Biden and Democrats’ economic policies are hurting Asian American families and small businesses. Asian Americans are now paying more for “just about everything” and Biden wants to push even more taxes and spending. This would be especially harmful to the Asian American community, where the effects of radical liberal policies have already proven disproportionate. In Democrat-run California, where the Asian American population is highest in the United States, 83% of Asian Americans with high school degrees filed for unemployment during the pandemic – more than double the rate of the rest of California’s workforce. Compare that to the Trump administration, when Asian Americans saw a record low unemployment rate, record high homeownership, and record low poverty.
In short, Biden and Democrats are failing on virtually every issue important to the Asian American community. Recently, in my podcast “Real America,” I discussed these failures with Congresswoman Michelle Steel and Young Kim – the first two Republican Korean American women to serve in Congress. I urge you to listen because these two incredible leaders aren’t just among the fourteen Republicans who flipped congressional seats red in 2020, but because they exemplify every day what fighting for the Asian American interests and values means.
The ongoing shift of Asian Americans to the Republican Party is not a one-off. Under the Trump administration, Republicans saw a 7% gain with Asian Americans from 2016 to 2020. The shift was even greater among Vietnamese Americans, who experienced a 14% shift toward Republican candidates.
The Republican Party does not take this progress for granted. Rather, we recognize an incredible opportunity to shape the future of our country with our message of prosperity and opportunity and move away from woke wars and socialist policies. While Democrats take the Asian American community for granted, the Republican National Committee is engaged. We’ve opened Asian American Community Centers in Dallas, Texas, Berkeley Lake, Georgia, and Westminster, California, and on Wednesday opened a brand new one in Las Vegas, Nevada – and with more on the way.
These centers are a testament to our enduring commitment to the Asian American community and growing our party. It’s not lost on us that they are an integral part of what has made America successful and free. This month, as we celebrate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we celebrate their many, many outstanding successes and rich heritage.
