Proudly Asian and Republican: The author Nam Pham, center, with Gov.-elect Charlie Baker, right and Leverett Wing.More than one friend of mine has asked me why an Asian American working for a nonprofit that helps disadvantaged people is a Republican. How can it be possible? The question implies that helping people and being a Republican are mutually exclusive, that they cannot go together in one sentence.

I often just reply that, in Massachusetts, we need to have more checks and balances because where I came from, Vietnam, one- party dominance brought havoc to the people. I also say that I believe in hard work, hope, and helping others when they are in need.

Then it dawned on me how perception has become even worse than reality. Perception has become a belief, albeit a very distorted belief. Most of my friends are Democrats. All of my friends seem to love and revere President Abraham Lincoln and at the same time many would call Republicans “evil.” They seem to forget that Lincoln was a Republican.

If being a Republican means you are against slavery and want to give all people a fair chance, then I am all for it, and also a very proud Republican.

Slavery still exists in the world today and is still a human tragedy, a crime against humanity as much now as in the past. Numerous countries engage in slave trading. For example, the governments of China and Vietnam are the top two human-trafficking regimes in the world.

My friends often argue that Lincoln was a different kind of Republican or it was so long ago or Republicans now are so different, only for rich businesses, so against the poor, and so mean-spirited. For the past 30 years, I have worked in state and federal government, at big banks, and with a few non-profits. I have personally met top government leaders, Democrats and Republicans. We all like to trash business greed. We forget that we and the US economy need business, especially small businesses.

At least more than two-thirds of our economic output and half of our nation’s jobs come from small business. Some leaders have said that businesses were not people and that businesses did not create jobs. When I hear this, even with my limited English, I still can find one word for this: demagoguery.

Every single business is created by people who hire other people, whether it is your favorite local restaurant or your favorite smart phone maker. If they are not people or creating jobs, then what is? How about the standard argument that Republicans are against the poor and for cutting the social safety net? None of our Massachusetts Republican governors have advocated any of that. Rather, they have talked about fixing a broken system. Even President Bill Clinton did that, emulating a Republican led-reform and we all cheered him loudly.

I have met numerous children who have only a mother, who has only a mother as well. And they all have had to rely on government handouts for generations. Will a hand-up be better than just a handout?
My friends say that Republicans deal with evil regimes. “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them,” said Lenin, the father of Soviet communism. Yes, Richard Nixon opened the floodgate to trade with China. However, it was Jimmy Carter who gave this oppressive communist regime formal diplomatic recognition on Jan. 1, 1979.

And in Massachusetts? It was Gov. Deval Patrick who gave not simply a Chinese company, but a Chinese government-owned company, more than half a billion dollar contract this year. So what’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans? It is the hypocrisy. Republicans say that they are capitalist; Democrats say that they are not, they are for higher values than money, but then they behave just like money-hungry capitalists.

When dealing with “evil regimes,” Republicans recognize the evil in Chinese or Russian regimes and try to deal with it realistically; Democrats either naively believe in the “goodness” of the mass-murderer Chinese and Russian rulers, or just plainly do not know what to do. Recall President Obama’s statement about dealing with ISIS: “We don’t have a strategy yet.”

How about Republicans being against gays and women? Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican, appointed Mike Duffy to be the first openly gay chairperson of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. And who was the first female governor of Massachusetts? It was Jane Swift, a Republican.

Republicans also have appointed more Democrats to Republican administrations than vice versa. One of Gov. Paul Cellucci’s most prominent cabinet appointments was that of Robert Durant, a Democratic state senator from Hudson as the Secretary of Environment. I can’t think of a Republican who has been appointed to anything by Governor Patrick.

How about being anti-immigrant? At the height of one of the most anti-immigrant periods in our history – the middle of the 1990s – Gov.Weld created the nation’s first ever “Governor’s New American Appreciation Awards” to celebrate immigrant contributions to America.

The last president to provide legal status and citizenship to undocumented immigrants was Ronald Reagan. While he is talking about pro-immigration reform, President Obama may at the same time be deporting the greatest number of immigrants in our history.

We all want to see our elected leaders collaborate in bipartisanship for the sake of the state and country. To have that, all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, first have to do our part. We must vote bipartisan. We must vote for the better candidate rather than just looking at a party label. We have to vote smarter. We have to vote with our conscience. We have to vote with our minds.

And, my friends, that is why I am an Asian Republican in Massachusetts.

Nam Pham is Quincy resident.