Immigrant who escaped communist China heartbroken her children are voting for Zohran Mamdani
In this DML Report…
Song Ying, a 72-year-old Chinese immigrant, swam eight hours from Shenzhen to Hong Kong in 1976 to escape the Chinese Communist Party under Chairman Mao Zedong. She was among millions fleeing mainland China to British Hong Kong between the 1950s and 1970s due to hunger and oppression. In 1978, Song and her husband immigrated to the United States with less than $200, settling in New York City's Chinatown. She worked as a reporter for a Chinese-language outlet, while her husband founded a telecom business. Their sons graduated from Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Song expressed disgust that her sons plan to vote for Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist candidate in the New York City mayoral election. She stated: "Socialism has been a disaster. Everything I've seen and experienced points to that. It breeds laziness and kills the motivation to strive." Song views her sons as naive, influenced by Mamdani's promises of free bus fares and affordable housing, which she sees as echoing the communist system she fled.
Song, a three-time Donald Trump voter who cast an early ballot for Andrew Cuomo, reflects a political shift among Chinese New Yorkers toward the right. A New York Times analysis of the 2022 gubernatorial race showed predominantly Asian neighborhoods in the city's five boroughs shifted 23 percentage points rightward from 2018. Joey Zhang, a Brooklyn Democrat who immigrated from Fujian, China, in 2003, also opposes Mamdani's policies, stating: "The US has changed in recent years. It wants people to believe that everyone deserves the same, no matter the effort. But life doesn’t work that way." Zhang cannot understand her children's support for Mamdani. New York City has about 1.4 million Asian American and Pacific Islander residents, with Chinese Americans making up 8% of the population.
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Mamdani leads in polls ahead of the election, pledging to tax the wealthy to fund progressive programs like affordable housing. Emerson College Polling director Spencer Kimball noted Mamdani's coalition includes increased support among black voters, rising from 50% to 71% since September, and 69% among voters under 50. Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor in 2021 amid sexual harassment allegations and holds Trump's endorsement, leads among some East Asians but trails Mamdani in areas like Flushing, Queens, and Manhattan's Chinatown, according to Democratic strategist Trip Yang. A JL Partners poll from October 30 showed Mamdani at 42%, Cuomo at 29%, and Republican Curtis Sliwa at 19% among those who have voted.