Global Leaders in Math Education
CONSERVATIVE CHINESE AMERICANS ARE MOBILIZING, POLITICALLY AND DIGITALLY  Members of the Maryland Chinese American Network pose with Republican state leadership after meeting to discuss both groups' opposition to sanctuary cities. (Photo: MCGOP)In 2016, Li joined a group of fellow Chinese-American immigrants to stump for Trump in the presidential election; what's more, she helped established the Maryland Chinese American Network (MD-CAN), a group that opposes any legislation that would have made Maryland a so-called sanctuary state. "A lot of people ask us, you are immigrants, why are you anti-immigrant? And we try to explain, we are legal immigrants," Li says. "A lot of people spend a lot of money to go through this lengthy process. It's not fair that other people can skip this process and get the same thing, and they may even get more benefits than us." MD-CAN got its start on WeChat, a popular Chinese social media network, when Li reached out to fellow immigrants—many of them dentists, engineers, scientists, realtors, accountants—she had met in both her political (she campaigned for Trump) and personal life (she is involved in parent associations). In WeChat groups, they grumbled about increases in crime rates, which they believed to be driven by MS-13 gang members; and higher property taxes, the cause of which they pinned on an influx of undocumented immigrant students coming into their local schools. Sanctuary legislation, they believed, would only drive more undocumented immigrants to move into their communities. They decided that their next fight would be to kill not only the pro-sanctuary city bill in the Maryland statehouse, but to go after city and county ordinances as well. Wearing bright yellow T-shirts, they began showing up at hearings around the state, often testifying late into the night, and sometimes in apocalyptic turns. "If this bill is passed, there will be no safe neighborhoods anymore, and Maryland will become a haven for criminals," said one MD-CAN member, Jing Chen, at a committee hearing in the state capitol. MD-CAN was ultimately successful: In early April, the statewide bill was withdrawn, and similar legislation in nearby Howard County was also defeated. "We think any citizens or non-citizens who are here in the U.S. should abide by the law," Li tells me. "And setting up a sanctuary city, you are attracting people who are criminals." The Washington Post described the work of MD-CAN as "an unusual burst of activism" by a group of first-generation immigrants who "otherwise have largely avoided engagement with local issues." Chinese Americans and Asian Americans, particularly those born in the U.S., tend to skew more progressive. Various polls found that Hillary Clinton captured anywhere from 65 percent to 79 percent of the Asian-American electorate, and last year's National Asian American Survey showed that 41 percent of Asian-American voters were registered with the Democratic Party, almost three times the number of those who were registered Republicans. But on issues ranging from affirmative action to police violence to undocumented immigration, a growing number of Chinese-American immigrants throughout the country are organizing themselves and protesting vocally in support of conservative causes, often putting them at odds with other communities of color, and other Chinese and Asian Americans. While relatively small in number, they've been remarkably successful in pushing their agenda. Shifts in U.S. immigration policy have long re-shaped the Chinese-American community. After the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively barred entry for all but a few immigrants from, the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act reversed decades of exclusion and turned what had been a slow trickle of Chinese immigrants into a highly regulated flood. In 1960, there were scarcely more than 200,000 Chinese Americans in the U.S. Today, according to census figures, there are more than three million, the majority of whom are foreign-born and come from mainland China. The Chinese-American community includes some of the most well-educated Americans with above-average median incomes; half of all Chinese-American immigrants have bachelor's degrees or higher. And it's from this group that organizations like MD-CAN draw their members. "I definitely think there is a segment of the Chinese community that is more conservative than people who grew up in the United States in the '60s and '70s," says Bill Ong Hing, a professor at the University of San Francisco and the director of its Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. He says that this conservative sector tends to be more middle- and upper-class immigrants. "They view America as a meritocracy, and they want America to be a meritocracy, and they think they've done everything to earn good things. And when they see that they work hard, and other people are getting ahead of them with favoritism, they get upset at that." In 2014, conservative Chinese-American groups in California successfully mounted a campaign against SCA-5, which would have reversed the state's decades-old ban on affirmative action in public universities. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the group Chinese Americans for Trump, made up primarily of first-generation immigrants, paid for billboards and aerial banners in support of Trump and, like Li, used WeChat to organize supporters in Chinese. The Economist described their campaigning as a "coming-out party for conservative Chinese Americans."  And in the spring of 2016, the trial of Peter Liang — the New York Police Department officer who fired the bullet that killed black Brooklyn resident Akai Gurley, who was unarmed—compelled tens of thousands of first-generation Chinese Americans across the country to protest what they viewed as an example of racial scapegoating. Liang was convicted of criminally negligent homicide, and was sentenced to perform 800 hours of community service. Li described Liang's trial as "a wake-up call" for Chinese immigrants in the U.S.; it galvanized many who had not previously been broadly politically active, including Li and other MD-CAN members. It taught them, Li says, that "if you don't stand up, if you don't raise your voice, then nobody will fight for you." This political activity has brought to light some of the generational fault lines that exist within the Chinese-American community—political divides that not only separate immigrants like Li from younger, U.S.-born activists, but also from an older generation of Chinese- and Asian-American organizers whose work derives from an earlier civil rights era. While conservative Chinese-American politics may seem like a bolt from the blue, conservative undercurrents have long simmered in the community. In 1992, more than half of Asian-Americans voters cast their ballots for George H.W. Bush. By 2012, however, 73 percent of voters went for Barack Obama, a shift that public policy professor and NAAS survey director Karthick Ramakrishnan attributed, in an article for The Prospect, to efforts by Bill Clinton to appeal to Asian Americans in the 1990s—courting Asian-American donors and appointing Asian Americans to key cabinet positions. Growing anti-immigrant rhetoric from the Republican Party also served to push Asian Americans toward the Democrats. "There's always been Asian-American conservatives," says Timmy Lu, a long-time organizer in California who has worked on statewide get-out-the-vote efforts for progressive campaigns. "It's not like they came out of nowhere. They've been part of the Democratic Party, they've been part of the Republican Party." What's new, he says, is a shift toward "particular forms of organizing, and the virulence of it." Alex Chen, the founder of the Silicon Valley Chinese Association, is one of those conservative activists. He came to the U.S. in 2006, and works as an engineer at a technology company in San Jose. He founded the SVCA in 2014 to mobilize other immigrants to fight efforts to re-institute affirmative action at public universities, believing the bill would have discriminated against high-achieving Chinese-American students. To him, the many Chinese immigrants who work in restaurants and other low-wage industries "are weak compared to some other races," adding that they tend to be poorer and less educated. He sees himself as part of a new generation of "very highly skilled professionals" who "don't rely on welfare." Chen has yet to become a citizen, but last year he campaigned eagerly for Trump, which took up 90 percent of his time outside of work, he says. This year, SVCA members are focusing on contacting local elected officials to oppose California's sanctuary state bill. "We have sympathy for illegal immigrants, but we cannot sacrifice ourselves," Chen says. "We have to care about ourselves first." Whether the current Chinese-American conservative movement is a new ideological group, fueled by recent populist sentiments across the country, or a simply another iteration of existing conservative leanings, academics credit our digitally connected ecosystem for the movement's ability to coalesce. "What we are seeing is the frontier of some kind of activism, and they are very, very Internet savvy," says Pei-te Lien, a professor at the University of California–Santa Barbara who researches the political participation of Asian and Chinese immigrant communities. And the message has become quite clear: There is no single Chinese-American political ideology. Source: https://psmag.com/social-justice/conservative-chinese-americans-are-mobilizing-politically-and-digitally -- 美国双月刊杂志《太平洋标准》（pacific standard）11日发表了一篇名为《保守美籍华裔正在向政治化和数字化行动》的文章，讲述了与以往印象不同的是，现在的亚裔美国人群体正在变得越来越保守。全文摘编如下： 反对移民的华裔移民 李贞雅（音译）并不是唐纳德•特朗普支持者中的常规形象：她1992年离开北京来到华盛顿，在乔治敦大学（Georgetown University）读分子生物学的Ph.D.，并于2003年拿到了美国公民的身份，她的工作是为国防部审查科学基金。李住在马里兰州的洛克威尔（Rockville），那里是华盛顿外有民主党人士密集居住的郊区。 2016年竞选期间，李加入了一个支持特朗普的华裔美国移民团体。另外，她还为建立马里兰华裔美国人联合会（简称MD-CAN）出了力，这一团体反对任何会把马里兰变为“避难州”的立法。 “许多人问我们，你们就是移民，为什麽还要反移民？然后我们会试着这样解释，我们是合法移民。”李说，“许多人完成这个冗长的过程需要花费很多钱。若其他人通过跳过这个过程就能得到同样的待遇，甚至会得到比我们还要多的好处，那样是不公平的。”  在双方就反对建立避难城市的会面结束后，马里兰华裔美国人联合会与该州的共和党领袖合影留念。（图片来源：MCGOP） 马里兰华裔美国人联合会是从微信开始的。一开始，李通过微信联繫到了其他的移民同胞，这些人中许多是牙医，工程师，科学家，地産商和金融家。李是通过为特朗普竞选这种政治途径以及私人途径认识的这些人。 在微信群里，这些人会抱怨犯罪率的上涨，他们认为这是由MS-13帮派成员造成的；他们还会讨论飙升的财産税，而他们认为这是移民学生不断涌入他们当地学校而造成的。 他们认为，事关庇护问题的立法只会让更多的无证移民搬进他们所在的社区。他们决定，下一战将不只是扼杀马里兰州政府内那些支持庇护难民的法案，还要对市县内的法规进行审视。 马里兰华裔美国人联合会最终取得了胜利：今年4月，这项法案在整个州范围内被撤回，附近霍华德县（Howard County）的类似立法也被取缔。 “我们认为任何在美国的公民或非公民，都应该遵守法律。”李告诉记者，“你建立起一个避难城市，就是在吸引罪犯。” 被移民政策不断重塑的群体 美国移民政策的改变长久以来都在不断重塑着华裔美国人社区。1882年通过的排华法案（Chinese Exclusion Act）有效阻止了几乎所有移民的入境；1965年的美国移民和国籍法（Immigration and Nationality Act）又推翻了几十年以来的排外，将之前中国移民的涓涓细流变成了管控下的洪流。1960年，美国的华裔美国人只有20万。如今，根据人口普查数据，华裔人口数量已达到了300万，这其中大部分人都来自于中国大陆，但在国外出生。华裔美国人群体中的有些人接受了很好的教育，收入也居于中等水平之上；半数左右的华裔移民都持有学士或更高学位。马里兰华裔美国人联合会也就是由这些人组成的。 “我很确定，华裔社区中有一部分人比在美国长大的那些60和70年代的人还要保守。”旧金山大学的邓新源教授说。同时担任旧金山大学移民和驱逐防御科（Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic）主任的邓教授说，华裔中的这部分保守派一般存在在中産和精英移民当中。 邓教授说：“他们把美国看作是一个精英社会，他们希望美国成为一个精英社会，并且他们认为自己已经竭尽全力去获得好的东西。当他们看到自己在辛勤工作，而其他人却因为受到袒护超越了自己，他们会感到沮丧。” 数字化让保守华裔联繫在一起 尽管华裔美国人的政治活动似乎看起来有些让人意外，但保守的暗流一直涌动在这一群体之中。1992年，超过半数的华裔选民将选票投给了乔治•H•W•布什（George H.W. Bush）。到了2012年，73%的人投票给了奥巴马。 “一直都存在亚裔保守人士。”加州长期组织活动的迪米•陆（音译）说：“他们并不是横空出世的，他们一部分来自于民主党一部分来自于共和党。”但新颖的是，陆说，转变的是“组织形式的改变，以及这其中的恶意”。 不论现在的保守派华裔运动是由全美民粹主义情绪燃起的一个新的意识形态群体，或仅仅是另一种已存在的保守倾向的重覆，学术派都认为，让这些人得以联繫在一起的，是由数字连结起的生态系统。  Comments (10/12/2017 @Matt) Rocky Run Middle School survey. I was shocked by the gender selection. Youths and adults have a third option! Pathetic school board uses gender neutralization to poison students and parents. (10/12/2017 @Emily) Please be clear we are not against LGBT. We are against LGBT have more rights than other students. We are against FCPS promoting LGBT life styles to turn normal kids to LGBT. (10/12/2017 @Chris) As hard as we are working to educate and train our kids, this gigantic FCPS train is going in the wrong direction, fast and furious, insanely derailed, pathetically off the track and completely devoid of common sense. Even if we can't get the train back on track, at least we can put up a fight and tell our kids about it!!! (10/12/2017 @Jane) 男女不分，黑白不明，是非不辩，伦理不敬，何以为人？何以安身立命？何以行天理？何以顶天立地？本立而道生！不知教育之本，无以立也！ (10/12/2017 @Alex) 还是投票最重要，投票才有话语权，不然家长们气死了也没用. Last Day to Register to Vote In November General Election Monday, Oct 16, 2017 https://vote.elections.virginia.gov/Registration/Eligibility Ed’s tax cut plan for ALL Virginians:
Ed Gillespie: Virginia’s top personal income tax rate kicks in at $17,000 a year. Ralph Northam thinks that makes you rich. Maybe that’s why he’s never voted for a tax cut. My plan cuts taxes for all Virginians, increasing take home pay for the average family by $1,300 and creating 53,000 good paying jobs. With a stronger economy we can invest more in our schools and increase teacher pay.   (10/12/2017 @Tom) Be sure to send emails to the FCPS SB members to let them know what you think about LGBT History Month. FCPS School Board Meeting - October 12, 2017 Published on Oct 12, 2017 Parents outraged after kindergarten teacher discusses gender identity Published on Aug 22, 2017
(10/07/2017 @张炜) 今天Ed Gillespie 发表了热情洋溢的演讲，希望大家动员更多的朋友11月7日出来投票！ 请维州各地的华人朋友积极行动起来，帮助Ed Gillespie 竞选维州州长！Make Virginia Great Again!   
   
(R) Ed Gillespie vs. (D) Ralph Northam Poll: 2017 VA State Election - Lt. Governor Candidates: (R) Jill Vogel vs. (D) Justin Fairfax (VA) John Adams: THE OPIOID CRISIS |    HAN, Liu, CPA | 韩柳 President, Principal Loan Consultant, Leader Funding, Inc.  电话: (240) 784-6645 Rockville, MD Phone: 301-366-3497 |
