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Anna Zhao

ABC Princeton Grad Asking You, Chinese Parents, to Vote for the Good of Asians

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Do you remember that rap video that told people to go rob Chinese people? Or the Fox News clip where some reporter went to NYC Chinatown and made fun of old Chinese people who don’t speak English? Or have you heard about Michael Luo, the NY Times reporter and Harvard alum, who just had some lady yell at him, “go back to China!” Didn’t these words just make you so angry? It’s 2016 and we still have to deal with this. Unbelievable, right?

If you are still undecided or are leaning towards Trump, then you probably think that everything offensive Trump has said “doesn’t matter and are just words” because you don’t believe that he’d do anything that he says. But if you say words don’t matter, then none of the instances I just mentioned should have been offensive to you. After all, they were just words.

I normally don’t care about politics. In fact, I hate politics?—?a bunch of liars who are too petty to work together to get anything done properly. But this year is different. We?—?that is the current generation of Asian-Americans, with aspirations of becoming the next CEO of a Fortune 100 company or Supreme Court Justice, need you to vote…and we need you to vote for Clinton, no matter how much you hate her or her family. Voting 3rd party to protest how much you hate both candidates is the equivalent to voting for Trump in this election?—?the short reason: it’s like how kids with siblings will get less from aunts and uncles compared to an only child.

Clinton is a flawed politician, but Trump is a flawed human being. Trump has already labeled Muslims as terrorists, African-Americans as criminals, and Mexicans as rapists?—?this is on top of mocking a disabled reporter, insulting the Muslim mother of a deceased Army Captain, and treating women as objects, whose value is determined purely by their looks. To call Trump a racist or misogynist is not name calling or a label given to him by “mainstream media”?—?this is the polite thing to call somebody who makes such prejudiced remarks. If you don’t believe the news or me, there are multiple videos of him saying these and more offensive things online.

If the reason why you haven’t found what Trump has said offensive enough is because a tiny part of you agrees with him, I urge you to reconsider. While it’s not acceptable to believe any of these absurd labels, it’s understandable that you might; after all, I bet most of your communication is through WeChat, which means that almost everybody you know and talk to regularly is Chinese. This means that your impression of these other minorities is based off movies, television shows, and the news?—?which are all biased to show what will make the most money. You know how some people think Asians can’t speak English or are good at kung fu? Please don’t be so offended by them— they probably are just like you, but the opposite. They probably don’t know any Asians and are basing their opinion of Asians off of Jackie Chan movies.

This is the point where you might say I’m wrong because all the statistics say that black and Hispanic people represent most of the crime in America. To which, I beg you to not mix up correlation and causation. You know how everybody thinks Asians are smart and know math because we’re Asian? Then you know that Asians aren’t smart because we’re Asian. It’s because of you, our immigrant parents, who drilled the importance of school and hard work into us?—?who pushed us to always strive to do better and get those 6 points that we missed next time. So please realize that black and Hispanic people don’t commit crimes because they’re black or Hispanic; people?—?of all races?—?commit crimes because they’re poor. How often do you hear about any person above the poverty line using a gun or even committing a crime? Think about it?—?why would any rational person with enough money risk going to jail? Just because you see black and Hispanic people play gangsters and drug dealers on TV and in movies, does not mean that they’re either.

Similarly, just because you see people who look Middle Eastern play terrorists on TV and in movies, does not mean that they are. A refugee is, by definition, somebody “who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.” The refugees in the Middle East are just like us, except they’ve lost everything?—?they were once doctors, teachers, and scientists, with kids who also had dreams of their own, not terrorists. Yes, there have been many people of Middle Eastern descent involved with terrorist attacks, but there have also been numerous instances of white men in terrorist attacks, and yet nobody believes white men are terrorists.

Do you remember the Sandy Hook shooting in 2013, when a white male went to an elementary school with an assault rifle and murdered twenty kids under 7 years old? The media portrayed that shooter as a deranged individual, as they should have. Imagine having crazy individuals represent your entire race because the media only talks about your race in the context of terrorist attacks. There was very little news on Jaber Albakr, a Syrian refugee in Germany, who helped prevent an attack by capturing a suspected terrorist. I bet you didn’t hear about this failed attack. How much did you hear about the three white terrorists in Kansas that were arrested this past week? Did you know they were in possession of explosives and assault rifles actively planning to attack a mostly Somali-Muslim apartment complex? These white terrorists have been portrayed by the media as “militia” by the way.

Do you remember the Virginia Tech shootings, when an Asian shot and killed 32 people and wounded 17 more? For nine years, this was the deadliest shooting incident in US history until the tragedy in Orlando this year. If he had any ties to Islam, it would have been called a “terrorist attack”. Instead, we currently enjoy white privilege?—?because he was Asian, he was just one weird crazy Asian that didn’t represent the entire race. Trump hasn’t targeted Asians yet, but if the leader of a country makes this many racist comments, it’s a sign to many that hating somebody because of their race is acceptable. If this shooting were to happen with Trump as our President, how do you know that we wouldn’t be the target of more extreme racism next? Somebody making a comment about our English might be the least of our concerns.

If you still think that refugees are terrorists, please realize that the US is not letting just anybody into the country. You have to go through a background check to get a job, so wouldn’t we, at the very least, do the same for somebody trying to enter the country? Just because somebody on TV says the US is letting everybody in, or you see it on the internet, or your friend repeats it, does not make it true. If you don’t trust me or my liberal mainstream papers, even Fox News has reported on the stringent background check process that refugees must go through to get into the country. If you don’t think the current standards are tough enough, I hope you’re also concerned that that we don’t even require background checks on everybody who wants to buy a gun.

If it’s affirmative action (AA) that concerns you, I hope you realize the irony in voting for Trump. Clinton is like the Asian who has that resume filled with every extracurricular, outstanding test scores, and a high GPA that nobody likes because she tries too hard, while Trump is not even the legacy admit or the athlete. Trump is the C student who gets into Harvard because his dad donated $2.5M to the school. Oh wait, that was Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, whose father bought his acceptance to Harvard.

You might be leaning towards Trump because he claims that he’s a good business man and that he’s “really rich”. However, he also lost $916M in one year and has yet to produce his tax returns to prove how rich he really is. If your kid got an F on a test, and told you that he got an A on the next test, but refused to show it to you, would you believe him?

If it’s taxes that concern you, I hope you realize that your vote has essentially come down to what is the price of your principles? Would you be proud to say that for only a few thousand dollars, you decided to choose the one with zero years of experience in government, who also promotes violence and discrimination?

Now, the tables have turned. We, your grown children, are pushing you to do better because just like why you pushed us, we know you can?—?you are nothing like the typical Trump supporter, rural, white, and without a college education. So please, please go vote, and vote for Hillary. If you say one vote doesn’t matter, then you should agree when your kid says that there is no difference between a 92 and a 93 on that test?—?the few extra points I got on various tests was the difference between my AP Physics grade rounding up from a 92.7 to an A and rounding down to a B, the difference between being a high school valedictorian, and probably the difference in getting into Princeton.

You might think I’m crazy, but maybe so are all of my overachieving, resume filling friends below who support this. Words matter. Actions matter. If you don’t trust us, what was the point of working so hard to get into a good college? We trusted you when you told us that school was important, and now we’re asking you to trust us.

Since nobody has a Medium account, feel free to send comments here: wordsmatter16@gmail.com

Thanks for reading.

Anna Zhao, Princeton ‘12 
Iris Zhou, Princeton ‘13, Harvard Law ‘19
Toni Wei, Duke ‘12, Wharton ‘18
Wendy Lang, Princeton ‘13
Shirley Gao, Princeton ‘13
David Hou, Princeton ‘11, NYU Stern ‘15
Philip Chang, Princeton ‘15
Peter Lyu, UNC ‘12, Emory ‘14, Harvard ‘21
Amy Kim, UNC ‘12, Ex-Deutsche Bank
Jean Rheem, Duke ‘12
Moya Chin, MIT ’13, Harvard ‘19
李似曼, Princeton ‘11
Ted Lee, Yale ’12, Yale Law ‘18
Ryan Yeh, Cornell ’13, Yale Law ‘18
Bonnie Fan, University of Chicago ‘14

If you want more evidence (as you should): 
For more about the terrifying Kansas Plot, click here.
For more about the heroics of Syrian refugee, Jaber Albakr, click here.
For the stringent requirements for refugees to come to the US, courtesy of Fox News, click here.

For how Ivanka Trump’s husband got into Harvard for $2.5M, click here and here. Spoiler alert: An official at Kushner’s high school told Golden: “There was no way anybody in . . . the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard. His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen.”

For the Fox News clip mocking Chinese people, click here.
For Michael Luo’s experience, click here.
For the song that angered so many people enough to generated a petition signed by over 112k people, you’ll have to find it yourself. That terrible video does not deserve more free traffic.