Chicago – May 02, 2025
Pauline Lee was the daughter of immigrants who had arrived in the United States as teenagers with nothing.
“When they came here, they were dirt poor,” she recalled.
At first, her parents worked low-paying, entry-level jobs before eventually pursuing their education and building successful careers in California.
Lee took pride in her family’s immigration journey, especially the fact that they immigrated legally.
“For me, illegal immigration was one of the biggest issues,” she said. “A lot of our resources were going to undocumented immigrants instead of being reserved for American citizens. That was a real concern.”
A retired attorney, Lee was actively involved in Republican politics in Nevada. In the most recent election, around 60% of Asian American voters in the state had supported President Trump over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, a major shift from four years earlier, when a similar percentage had backed Joe Biden.
During Trump’s first 100 days in office, he had taken measures to tighten immigration policies and eliminate diversity programs in higher education and the federal government. These decisions followed an election in which he had gained more support from nonwhite voters, including some directly affected by those policies.
Over lunch, Lee mentioned that many of her Asian American friends also valued Trump’s opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“I was resentful as a parent that my kids had to work harder than others just to get into certain colleges,” she said.
When her now-grown children were applying to universities, she remembered counselors advising them against Ivy League schools, warning that they would face stiff competition from other high-achieving Asian students.
Las Vegas City Councilwoman Francis Allen-Palenske had heard similar concerns.
“Most Asian people seemed to feel that when colleges reviewed applications, student ethnicity shouldn’t be disclosed,” she said. “That way, there could be true fairness, a real merit-based process, if that even existed.”
