{"id":11836,"date":"2013-12-18T20:05:57","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T20:05:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/colorlines.madeostudio.com\/article\/why-gop-honoring-repeal-chinese-exclusion-act\/"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:05:57","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T20:05:57","slug":"why-gop-honoring-repeal-chinese-exclusion-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/article\/why-gop-honoring-repeal-chinese-exclusion-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is the GOP Honoring the Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Why Is the GOP Honoring the Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act?<\/h3>\n

Wednesday was the 70th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.<\/p>

\n By Julianne Hing<\/span> Dec 18, 2013<\/span>\n <\/p>\n <\/div>\n

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Who knew the GOP cares about the shameful legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act? The short answer: when votes are at stake. In a video House Republicans released Wednesday, six lawmakers–Reps. Lynn Jenkins, Jeff Denham, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Renee Ellmers, Cynthia Lummis and Frank Wolf–honored the 70th anniversary of the repeal of the nation’s first immigration law to single out for exclusion a single ethnic or racial group. But there’s no mention of that history in the video.<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, they offer stock platitudes. \"Today we honor and recognize the hard work and perseverance of the Chinese-American community across the nation…a<\/span><\/span>s we continue to build on our shared goal of an America that is rich in opportunity and freedom,\" lawmakers say in the video.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ros-Lehtinen and Denham did sign on<\/a> this fall to a comprehensive immigration reform bill, but don’t mistake the video for a change of heart in the party’s current stance on immigration either. Count it as just the most recent in a line of Republicans’\u00a0<\/span><\/span>not-so-secret overtures<\/a> to Asian-American voters. Earlier this year, the GOP issued a public statement recognizing Diwali, the Los Angeles Times<\/a> reported.<\/span><\/p>\n

To Republicans, Asian Americans are an especially attractive but elusive voting bloc. They’re not only the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, they’re seen as a natural fit for the Republican party. Some segments of the Asian-American population are comparatively wealthier than other racial groups in the U.S. and are seen as fiscally and socially conservative. But it hasn’t translated into votes.\u00a0In the 2012 election, <\/span>77 percent<\/a> of Asian-American voters voted for Barack Obama, and support for the Democratic president swung upwards of 95 percent for some segments of the population. It turns out that Asian-American voters care deeply about immigration<\/a>, and are paying attention to how both parties handle the issue.
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\n Archive<\/a>Asian American and Pacific Islanders<\/a>GOP<\/a>GOP and race<\/a>Politics<\/a>Voters<\/a> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wednesday was the 70th anniversary of the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_gspb_post_css":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[16402,1525,6121,6122,16418,15657],"article-type":[],"topic-meta":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11836"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11836\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11836"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-type?post=11836"},{"taxonomy":"topic-meta","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/colorlines.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic-meta?post=11836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}