By Ti-Hua Chang
As thousands of Kamala Harris’ supporters packed The Yard at Howard University on Wednesday, the mood was somber and subdued. You could see women hugging each other. There were few smiles and few Harris Walz signs. There were a lot of women shaking their heads and one heard words like, “I’m grieving. Can’t believe it.”
On this same campus, in the same spot in front of the Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall, where she hoped to celebrate making history on Tuesday, on Wednesday Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the Presidency to Donald Trump. She also promised a peaceful transition of power and urged her supporters not to “despair… this is not a time to throw up our hands; this is a time to roll up our sleeves… to mobilize, to stay engaged for the sake of freedom.”
Hakyon Kim, a middle-aged consultant from suburban Washington DC, told AsAmNews at the Harris concession speech that she “felt heartbroken.” She voted for Harris and since 2015 voted three times against Donald Trump. To her, it was, “untenable to support a candidate so divisive, so unqualified and so lacking in character.”
Kim had been a lifelong Republican until 2015 when Trump became the Republican candidate for President. She switched parties to support, “…decency, believing in science facts, knowing between right and wrong.”
Kim went on to say, “In 2016 I guess I was a little naive so I thought it wouldn’t be so bad, but it was far worse than I imagined, so now the second time around, the few guard rails that were in place will be dismantled.”
“I’m so disappointed because that’s what America voted for.”
I asked Kim if she felt her fellow Americans had let her down. She responded, “ Absolutely. …Unfortunately a lot of the electorate is ignorant and uninformed and voting against their own self-interest in the hopes they might have cheaper eggs and milk.” Kim viewed it as voting for short term monetary goals at the expense of long-term goals like democracy.
To Kim, Trump, “doesn’t even understand economic policy, the basics of it. He says what he might do, but there are no specifics on what his policy actually is and how he is actually going to lower inflation and lower prices for common household goods for the average family.”
Not having an Asian American President was “absolutely” upsetting to Kim. As for the future, Kim seemed to paraphrase Kamala Harris, ”We fight. We mobilize. In the next couple of years, we take that power in the House , the senate and make that happen… Unfortunately having a competent and qualified woman of color; I guess America is just not ready for that.”
This coverage was made possible by a grant through the URL Collective, a nonprofit supporting local, diverse media. AsAmNews and URL Collective have partnered to bring you election reporting from grassroots media.
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We are supported through donations and such charitable organizations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. This holiday season, double your impact by making a tax-deductible donation to Asian American Media Inc and AsAmNews. Thanks to an additional benefactor, all donations will now be matched up to a total of $12,000.
Please also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and X.
