Trump at an early campaign event in New Hampshire. Photo: Wikipedia

vast majority of Filipinos who migrated to the United States to settle in the many towns and cities that dot the country from coast to coast have for decades bucked the trend followed by most immigrants. Pinoys gravitate towards the Republican Party instead of the Democratic Party. Mexicans and other Latinos for instance, share the same Catholic faith as Filipinos but overwhelmingly vote Democratic. There are also the Vietnamese, Japanese, and Koreans who like Filipinos are Asian, but they lean more towards the Democrats as well.

Filipinos appear the only group of first-generation immigrants in the U.S. who identify more with Republicans. On the face of it, this does seem unusual given that Republicans appear to be xenophobic, intolerant, and non-inclusive compared to Democrats. Thus more African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other racial minorities identify more with Democrats than Republicans.

But now that Donald Trump is pushing the GOP far, far to the right, making even mainstream Republicans uncomfortable, where do the large number of Pinoy Republicans stand? Are they okay with banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.? Do they stand with Trump when he says the millions of illegals in the country should be deported?

It would not surprise us if a vast number of them stand with Trump and his outrageous pronouncements. Our despicable kanya-kanya attitude manages to rear its ugly head anywhere you find Filipinos living abroad. For Pinoys in the U.S. that attitude can be summed-up this way: "we managed to get our green card or American citizenship and that's all that matters—we couldn't care less if everyone else is excluded or deported."

Who knows, maybe that uncaring, spiteful attitude is what the Donald Trump campaign is looking for. Blend that in with the anger  and disenchantment from the rest of Trump's supporters and you have the embodiment of everything that's worrisome about today's America. Published 3/21/2016