Asian support for Trump divided

Among Asian Americans, Filipinos have the largest percentage of registered voters supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump for US president, a recent survey shows.

Based on the results of the National Asian American Survey released October 5, 27 percent of Filipino-American participants were for Trump, followed by Japanese-Americans (22 percent) and Vietnamese-Americans (20 percent).

On the other hand, at 7 percent, Asian Indians have the smallest percentage of registered voters supporting the Republican candidate.

Many Filipinos see Trump as an alter-ego of their new president Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte like Trump promised, and still promises, to make the Philippines great again. With powerful conviction he promised his people that he would end crime in six months, would provide great jobs for everyone and would stand up to all the foreign countries that were bringing The Philippines down.

The survey also showed 57 percent of Fil-Ams prefer Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, over Trump, while 6 percent would vote for the "other candidate," and 10 percent did not know who to vote or refused to identify their candidate.

Trump, a 70-year-old mogul who has portrayed himself as tough on national security, launched his presidential campaign with his vow to build a wall on the US-Mexican border.

He also said he would prioritize the deportation of illegal aliens who have committed crimes and who are overstaying in the US. He also once proposed to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the US.

Interestingly, the same survey showed a large percentage of Filipinos, or 65 percent, oppose the proposed ban on Muslims.

However, the survey also shows Fil-Ams have the largest percentage who oppose giving Blacks equal rights as Whites (22 percent), and largest percentage of opposing entry of Syrian refugees (41 percent).

Fil-Am Psychology professor EJR David said it is not surprising that many Filipinos are anti-immigration and anti-People with color.

In his August 6 article on Psychology Today titled  "A Brief Note on Immigration, Colonial Mentality, and Kapwa," David said this could be chalked up to "colonial mentality."

"Colonialism and contemporary oppression has taught us that the United States of America is utopia, that White is right, that West is best, and that Christianization is civilization," he said.

David said he found out through research that colonial mentality could also be expressed by a desire to "separate one’s self from others who are perceived as inferior."

Telephone (landline and cell phone) surveys of 2,238 Asian American and 305 Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NHPI) adults were conducted between Aug. 10 and Sept. 29, and respondents were offered to complete the survey in English or in one of nine Asian ethnic languages. Given that two-thirds of the Asian American population is immigrants—a figure that reaches four-fifths among Asian American adults—offering the survey in languages other than English ensures a more representative sample of the Asian American population than typical surveys.

A report released by the team on Oct. 5 details results from the initial wave of data collection focuses on 1,694 registered Asian Americans and 261 registered NHPIs.  Specific Asian groups included Chinese, Asian Indians, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Hmong, Cambodians, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders. Additional results focusing on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders will be released in the coming weeks.

Among other key findings of the survey:

Asian American and NHPI registered voters rank the economy, national security, racism, government, and immigration as the most important problems facing the country.

Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of Asian American millennials (between the ages of 18 and 34) state that racism is the most important problem facing the country, and close to three-quarters (72 percent) of all Asian Americans support the government doing more to give blacks equal rights with whites.

Asian Americans hold progressive views on many policy issues, including health care, education spending, racial justice, and the treatment of Muslim immigrants. But, they are split on allowing Syrian refugees to enter the U.S. and are conservative on legalizing marijuana.