The parallels between this Cuban American experience and the Vietnamese-American generational split are eerily close. This is almost exactly what happened to us, too, down to the misinformation campaigns funneled through language-specific channels aimed at our parents. https://twitter.com/nataliemorales/status/1324083909404090374

In our case, it was the Vietnam War. When the Democrats moved to support their anti-war constituents, the South Vietnamese people saw that as Americans on the Left betraying them and abandoning them to their deaths. The ones who escaped remained loyal to right-wing Americans.

The American right then capitalized on that enormous generational trauma. It's further bolstered by Vietnamese language news channels skewing extremely conservative, AND older Vietnamese Americans love Trump as the anti-China candidate. There's so much bad blood there.

And that barely scratches the surface, frankly. A lot of us, through this election, have been entirely alienated from our parents. They cannot uncouple their politics from this specific trauma, and when the right leveraged that, it was over.

Also note that the generation of Vietnamese refugees known as boat people, who came over in the late-70s through the 80s, would like not consider themselves Asian American. They're Viet. They were not here when those political coalitions were built.

I'm doing my best to be as empathetic as I can without compromising my values. If you've known me for any amount of time in any capacity, you'll know I have a lot of love for my parents. They really did their best figuring out how to love through all the trauma they hold.

But I can't compromise on this. It truly feels like my loving, thoughtful parents have been stolen away from me, and it absolutely breaks my heart.