Nhat Nguyen stood Sunday morning on a sidewalk on Bellaire Boulevard with a bullhorn in one hand and phone in the other. “Go Trump!” he shouted while live-streaming to Facebook a parade of honking cars bedecked in Trump flags. Trucks blasted music from open windows as they cruised through southwest Houston’s Little Saigon neighborhood.
The previous afternoon, a socially-distanced group stood on a wide lawn just blocks away listening to speakers decry the president’s handling of the pandemic, call for unity and demand for respect. Busy traffic rushed past as the group walked alongside a strip mall of Vietnamese cafes, chanting and clutching signs for Joe Biden.
The Houston metropolitan area is home to a significant population of Vietnamese refugees, many with conservative values who see President Donald Trump as a strong anti-Communist leader. But the Vietnamese American community is splintering along generational lines as new voices herald more progressive views that align with the broader Asian American community — an often overlooked contingent of voters who political experts say could sway Tuesday’s presidential election.
“I think Asian Americans ultimately provide a blue edge in Texas,” said Janelle Wong, a University of Maryland professor and senior researcher at Asian American Pacific Islander Data, a policy research group that co-published in September an Asian American voter survey.
Electorate power
Asian Americans, the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. electorate, represent a powerful political force. As the population has boomed across Texas and in the Houston area, so too has the number of eligible voters — a historically “untapped source of electorate power,” said Steven Wu, a board member at OCA-Greater Houston, a nonpartisan civic advocacy group.
This year, although most Asian American voters in the September Asian voter survey reported little to no contact from presidential campaigns, the Trump and Biden camps each have stepped up efforts to court those communities.
“Both are recognizing Texas is in play — and that Asian American voters could be the reason why they win the state,” Wu said.
In a tight race that could be clinched on the margins, Democrats are hopeful that high turnout from Asian Americans could be the deciding vote for their candidate’s victory. The recent AAPI Data national poll shows 54% of Asian American voters planned to support Biden while 30% said they prefer Trump.
“We will be the swing vote. We will be what carries Joe Biden across the finish line in Texas,” said state representative Gene Wu during a Saturday rally in Bellaire. “Something people have said could never be possible — our community will make it possible.”
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans are working to get out the vote for Trump. James Tang, former president of the Texas Asian Republican Club, said the group’s roughly 100 Houston-area members have been phone-banking, donating and rallying in the run-up to the election.
“Being a Republican and a supporter of Trump, I would like to do everything I can to influence my fellow Asian Americans in that direction,” the 72-year-old said, listing jobs, the energy sector and law-and-order as his top issues. “I’d like to see him have a second term and continue the good work that he’s been doing for us the past four years. If we can get enough support, we will be able to help him win this election.”
Asian American Pacific Islanders account for 5.5% of the Texas electorate with 795,600 eligible voters — a number that has climbed 20% since the last presidential election and jumped 46% between 2012 and 2018, according to a nonpartisan civic engagement group called Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote.
Asian Americans make up roughly 6% of eligible voters in Harris County and 17% of eligible voters in neighboring Fort Bend County, according to APIA Vote.
The Asian American community encompasses vast diversity. The Vietnamese community is more likely to support Trump than any other segment of the Asian American population, according to the AAPI Data poll. Meanwhile, Indian Americans are the most likely to prefer Biden, according to the poll.
Indian and Vietnamese Americans account for the largest Asian American populations in the Houston metropolitan area, according to census data, but there are also significant Chinese, Filipino and other ethnicities too.
In 2016, South Asian Americans showed the strongest support for Hillary Clinton, with 84% of Indian Americans voting for the Democrat and 14% siding with Trump. In a shift left, 65% of Vietnamese Americans voted for Clinton and 32% for Trump, according to an exit poll conducted by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.
Indian Americans are expected to maintain strong support for the Democratic Party despite Trump’s allegiance with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. A ticket with vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris, whose mother is Indian, has energized Indian and other Asian American voters, observers say.
Asian Americans for Biden
Lê Hoàng Nguyên was not seeking the limelight when he paid for a Black Lives Matter billboard on Bellaire Boulevard this summer. But the torrent of backlash from some in southwest Houston’s Vietnamese community transformed the 50-year-old small business owner into an accidental activist.
Haters blasted him in Facebook comments. They scrawled a racist threat in red marker and mailed it to his office. They hurled at him the worst Vietnamese insults: dog and Communist. With the election looming large, Nguyen used his billboard to label himself anew: “Lifelong Republican for Biden. Country before party.”
Last week, Nguyen fulfilled that promise at the polls. He’s still getting goosebumps.
Nguyen was among 50 to 75 people at Saturday’s rally hosted by Chinese Americans for Biden, Filipino Americans for Biden-Harris, Vietnamese Americans for Biden, Asian American Democrats of Texas and Emgage, a Muslim civic engagement group.
Speakers decried the coronavirus crisis and the pandemic-related spike in racist attacks. They spoke with excitement about Harris’ name on the ticket and with reverence for Biden’s call to unity. They urged people to vote, reminding the crowd that their voices matter.
“Listen,” Nguyen said, standing at the podium in jeans and an American flag ballcap. “As Americans, we can debate, we can disagree about policies all day long. However, there’s certain values that are the bedrock of our wonderful democracy … decency, humanity, truth, honor, sacrifice, unity. These must always be non-negotiable.”
A volunteer spritzed the microphone with hand sanitizer between each speech.
“For this government and for this president to always belittle, to always insult and to always mock and to always treat us as a fourth class citizen is not acceptable,” said Nelvin Adriatico, co-chair of the Texas branch of Filipino Americans for Biden Harris.
Trump Train
The supporters of President Trump, like their candidate, were bigger, bolder, louder — and they had been meeting each Sunday since the first week of September for what they dubbed the “Trump Train.”
In the bed of Tinh Do’s pick-up truck Sunday morning in Dakao Plaza, women in long yellow-and-red dresses stood with a speaker system. “Donald Trump,” one woman yelled into the microphone. “Four more years,” the crowd responded. Each rally has averaged 40 participating cars, Do said, although one week drew 60 vehicles.
Many Vietnamese Americans came to the U.S. after the Vietnam War. Their passionate support for Trump is rooted in their own harrowing escape from Communist China in 1975 when they were forced to flee their country as refugees by boat. They back the president in large part because of his anti-China rhetoric and policies.
“He’s on the same boat as us, fighting communism,” said Do, 60, co-organizer of the weekly events. “We have witnessed a lot of terrible things caused by (Communists) to our Vietnamese people.”
Nhat Nguyen, 58, said his father was jailed by the Communist party for eight years after the war. In the U.S., he learned English, worked days and studied at night to earn a master’s degree. Now a family man and owner of a Natural Herb shop on Bellaire, he believes in hard work and opposes illegal immigration, abortion and rioting.
Huong Nguyen, 61, of Richmond, cheered from the backseat of her friend’s car. Her 73-year-old husband, Long Nguyen, was leading the pack on a motorcycle.
When Huong and Long Nguyen voted early last week, they snapped a smiling selfie with “Fort Bend Voter” blue-and-red stickers. Alongside their deep-seated fear of Communism is a respect for freedom.
“Whoever wins the election, we have to accept it as our president …we cannot destroy that democracy,” Long Nguyen said after the Trump rally as he stood in a parking lot beneath the Biden billboard.
anna.bauman@chron.com
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October 28, 2020 at 12:00PM
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