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Marpheen Chann is the author of the memoir “Moon in Full” and a former at-large charter commissioner for the city of Portland. Ellie Sato chairs the Maine Democratic Party’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee and is a candidate for Maine House District 109 in Gorham.
Maine’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community is a cornerstone of our state. We are educators and health care providers, hospitality workers and veterans, and young leaders, like the two of us.
In this election, we believe President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are the only choice for the security of our economy, our LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights, and our democracy.
Many AANHPI community members, whether recently or in decades past, came to these shores in search of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They fled authoritarianism and corruption, war and genocide, and persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, sexuality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
We know this reality all too well.
While Donald Trump was in office, we watched in horror as the authoritarianism many members of the AANHPI community escaped were reflected back at us, as Trump fueled flames of racism, leading to a severe and devastating spike in anti-Asian hate and violence toward the community. From spewing anti-AANHPI rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic and publicly referring to the virus as the “Kung Flu,” to encouraging white supremacy and xenophobia, the prevalence of hate crimes against the AANHPI community under Trump’s anti-Asian presidency are among the top reasons why we support four more years for Biden and Harris, herself of mixed Jamaican and South Asian descent. The Biden-Harris administration’s track record over the past few years speaks for itself.
In stark contrast to the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris administration is fighting for members of the AANHPI community, not against us. Between 2021 and 2022, the FBI reported that anti-Asian hate crimes decreased 33 percent. Biden and Harris are guiding our economic recovery, fighting price gouging and lowering the costs of prescription drugs like insulin, which is a big win for members of the AANHPI community, who are 40 percent more at risk of diabetes than members of the white population.
While inflation has gone down from a peak of 9 percent to 3 percent, and jobs have been created, including more than 1.5 million good-paying jobs for AANHPI Americans, there is more work to do. Biden and Harris are committed to finishing the job. They are working every day to keep moving our country forward and make life better for people like us by continuing to lower costs and create good-paying jobs.
In contrast, since the moment he first ran for office in 2016 on a platform of anti-immigration and xenophobia, to now, when he continues to promote racist ideology and conspiracy theories, Trump, to us, has proven himself unfit for office and an immediate threat to the democracy we know and love. He and his allies’ “vision” for our country includes Project 2025, an extreme and dangerous agenda that defunds government agencies like the Department of Education, bans abortion nationwide and raises taxes for the middle class while giving handouts to billionaire donors.
On Nov. 5, we have a choice. We can either safeguard our democracy and continue our progress toward a brighter future for all Americans, or we can give divisive and dangerous politics a second chance. For AANHPI Mainers, we believe this choice is clear: We must reelect Biden and Harris and reject Trump once and for all — for our community, for our country and for our state.
