John Ying: Asian American core values align with GOP

In previous blog posts, I have argued that the Republican Party should forget about trying to attract Hispanic voters and instead court the support of Asian, Indian, and Eastern European immigrants, especially here in Silicon Valley. For example, I wrote:

In my opinion, [Asian, Indian, and Eastern European] immigrants are natural constituents of the Republican Party. My experience is that they have conservative family values. They believe that one should get ahead through hard work, not government handouts. They understand the financial mess the US finds itself in and find it repugnant. Their value system is decidedly entrepreneurial and meritocratic. Statements like President Obama's "You didn't build that" are counterintuitive to them. ...

In sum, the Republican Party should forget about pandering to Latinos and blacks and instead promote real, global diversity by advocating for more [Asian, Indian, and Eastern European] immigration into Northern California. Once these new immigrants from Asia and Europe are absorbed into the American melting pot, they will be far more likely to support the many strands of conservative thought that find their natural home in the Republican Party.

Now FoxNews reports:

A group of Asian Americans is starting a grassroots effort to garner support for the Republican Party and its candidates, saying the GOP most closely aligns with their core values including family, education and entrepreneurship.

The group, the Asian Republican Coalition, is co-founded by international investment banker John Ying, who during the 2012 presidential election cycle served on the Republican National Finance Committee. ...

While much of the Republican Party’s focus has recently been to trying to connect with Hispanic voters, ... Asians are the country’s fastest-growing ethnic group, according to a 2012 U.S. Census report. ...

Ying repeatedly says the group is focused on family, education, entrepreneurship, personal freedom and “merit- and work-ethic driven opportunity."

Asian-Americans recently got a wake up call when California Democrats sought to reintroduce affirmative action into the admission process at California public universities through constitutional amendment SCA-5. As I wrote at the time:

Anyone familiar with the demographic makeup of the University of California knows that students of Chinese and Indian descent are vastly overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population. This overrepresentation is not the result of affirmative action, but of the strong support of parents and the hard work and academic excellence of students who come from the families of these ethnic groups. The amendment being pushed by the Democratic Party threatens to reintroduce other considerations besides meritocratic ones into the admissions process. If Chinese and Indians are overrepresented now, it is guaranteed that their enrollment numbers will fall if race-based considerations are reintroduced into the admissions process.

Because of considerations like these, many Asian Americans wrote their State Senators expressing their disapproval of SCA-5 and the amendment has temporarily been tabled. But, Democratic support for SCA-5 has made it plain to many Asian Americans that their interests are not aligned with those of the Democratic Party, and that they would find a more natural home in the Republican Party.

Thus, I welcome John Ying's efforts to persuade Asian Americans that their core values of family, academic excellence, and entrepreneurship more closely align with the principles of the GOP.