My Race and Gender Make Me Politically Incorrect

As an immigrant girl who moved here at the age of 10 from a country that does not know what the warm light of the absence of government feels like, I am a part of a minority group no one has ever spoken of.

Because I am a minority woman who identifies herself as a Republican, I can tell you endless stories of moments when I felt the need to hide my partisanship. Nearly all the conversations I hold with my fellow colleagues about current events or social justice issues die a few seconds after the question, "Wait what party are you?" comes up. As soon as I answer, "I'm a Conservative," I either get the really ugly furrowed brows or the squinted eyes, like they are trying to figure out where to place me in their people categories. After that, it is like there is a storm of prejudice that comes by and sweeps up all the points I have just made with which they utterly agreed. Because I am now an unidentified species they have never came across, I get a whole dam full of questions like "But you are Asian, how?" or "But you're a woman, how?"

Instead of continuing the beautiful conversation we were just having about education reforms, now I am having my partisanship used as a canon firing at my political opinions. As if my race, gender and party identification create craters of flaws in my political opinions that they can no longer take me seriously. As if my race and gender make me politically incorrect and misinformed that they always feel the need to remind me that because I am an Asian woman, I do not align with my choice in party. 

When I learned about how members of the LBGTQ community feel whenever a stranger just assumes their sexual identities, I felt a sense of empathy as I understood that feeling from many times people used my race and gender to point of flaws in my political beliefs.

To those who are ignorant and believe in the stupid stereotype that claims Asians as a whole to be all Democratic, let me introduce to you a species of aliens who are Asians and women, but Conservatives. Yes, there is still a species of Asians who believe America is great for its Constitution and the Bill of Rights that ensure individual freedom while trying to keep alive the belief that despite your background, you are promised success if you work hard. Yes, we exist. Wait, please hold all your ignorant gasps until the end.

For all those questions of why I am a Conservative that I would like to put an end to, this is why. Coming from a socialist government in a third world country where government involvement is in every corner of people's lives, let me paint you a clear and realistic picture of the other side. When you turn on the daily news at 6 PM on the one news station that you have, the news are nothing propagandas that are playing as the hands to cover your eyes from the harsh reality. The news that have been approved by the government because if it were something other than that, the news station would probably be seeing the end to their business and jail time. When you go on the internet and try to go on foreign shopping sites, they are blocked. When you go and google democracy, it's blocked. When you go and try to learn about anything besides government-furbished trash, it's blocked. When you write a Facebook status on how restricted you feel living under the Socialist Republic, you best believe you will end up at a police station before you could go to school the next day. Not to mention how the house you're paying mortgage for is not and will never be yours. When you get ready for school, you best believe you cannot forget that red tie that says the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on there. And better not be late Monday mornings for the weekly flag ceremony to remind you of the Great Leader and recite his teachings as well as pledging your allegiance to the Party. 

While all of my childhood experiences sound like a book written about a daily life experience of a socialist third world country that you only read from as you sit in a coffee shop in your free first world country, they are your future. No, no I'm not crazy and delusional, yes I know this is the great free U S of A, I'm not kidding. As more and more of my generation pushed for Bernie Sanders, I can start talking about these and watch as people laugh because they think I'm joking. Most of my colleagues supported Sanders because he wanted free college education not knowing how unrealistic and scary that sounds. And some who are more politically sophisticated supported Sanders because of his actual platform, they were even scarier to me. 

Scared because I did not know our country is on such a brink of collapse that people have to be flocking to the sound of the Socialist bell. Scared because of how uninformed my peer are on the realistic aspect of the world. Scared because the country I found shelter in is now in danger of becoming like the one my parents fled from.