Secretary Elaine Chao on the Fears of Asian Americans

WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Christiane, and Secretary Elaine Chao, welcome to the show.

 

ELAINE CHAO, FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Nice to be with you.

 

ISAACSON: You were in President Donald Trump’s cabinet. You resigned right after the January 6th invasion of the Capitol. saying you were deeply troubled by it. Tell me what you think of this week’s indictments of him for keeping classified secrets and violating the Espionage Act.

 

CHAO: Well, I think that’s a legal case. An indictment is an allegation, so let’s see what happens.

 

ISAACSON: But were you kind of surprised when you saw all those pictures and things? I mean, I’m somewhat surprised that more Republicans haven’t talked about it.

 

CHAO: Well, I wasn’t that close to him, so, you know, I don’t really have any idea of what happened.

 

ISAACSON: All right. Do you think the indictment might affect the race?

 

CHAO: I have no idea. 

 

ISAACSON: You’ve been a longtime Republican, traditional conservative. You were the labor secretary under President George W. Bush, You’re married to Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader. What do you think of what’s happened, the drift or the change in the Republican Party since the days of Georgia W. Bush?

 

CHAO: You know, I’m not really in politics. Some people may be surprised to hear that. I mean, I basically, I’m in public service. I’m an immigrant to this country. I came when I was eight years old. I knew so little about this country, but what my parents imbued upon their daughters was that this is a wonderful country in which opportunities would abound. They weren’t quite sure what these opportunities would be, but they were totally confident that America is a land of hope and opportunity.

 

ISAACSON: You wrote a very moving article in the Washington Post recently in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Month, and which you talked about the need or the reason that we should have a museum honoring that culture on the National Mall. Explain why you feel that.

 

CHAO: Well, as I mentioned, I’m an immigrant to this country. My parents left China during the height of the Civil War. In 1949, they relocated to a small island, which is now very much in the press called Taiwan. And my father took a national examination. He scored number one, broke all the records and had the chance to come to America. He was also one of the youngest sea captains of his time at the age of 29 for a young couple who has never seen white people or any Americans. It was a tremendous vote of faith in the opportunities that this country provided. So my father went first. He was alone in America for three years, leaving behind his pregnant wife and two young children. So we didn’t come to America until three years later. We arrived and in a boat, it took 37 days on the seas. And we lived in a one bedroom apartment when we first came to America. And then as our situation got better, we moved to Long Island and then to Westchester County…

And our story is one of millions that mark the American journey. And being Asian American, I’ve been like all, like most Americans, have been very, very concerned about the increase in violence and antipathy and hatred against the Asian American community. The Asian American story is the American story among one of many, many threads. And I was thinking about how best to combat this rise in anti-Asian sentiments.

And so what better solution would there be, but to have a museum that’s dedicated to the contributions, the achievements of the Asian American community. And that’s how the idea arose, and I think it actually has great currency. I wanna give voice to the fears of this community. There are a lot of people who are really concerned about the increase in hatred and sentiments against Asian Americans. It’s fueled by what happened to Covid. Everyone suffered during Covid, but especially this population, this community, because so many Asian Americans own their own businesses. So from a unemployment rate of 2.4% pre-covid you know, the unemployment rate jumped to over 14%. And on top of that came heaps of abuse and anger and anti-Asian sentiments.

 

ISAACSON: What do you think of the causes of that? We’ve seen covid, as you said, and that was labeled by the President then to be a China flu that’s one reason. Are there other reasons you think this is happening?

 

CHAO: I think that’s one reason. And I also think the increasing tensions between the US-China relations is another. No, a lot of people can’t tell the difference between the Asian American groups. And in fact, the Asian American community is comprised of people from 80 different countries with very, very different backgrounds. But to many people, they really can’t differentiate one group versus another. And so this increasing tensions between the US-China relations is spilling over to all Asian American groups. And with obviously very great concern within the community, and I think outside the community as well.

 

ISAACSON: You talk about the need for a cultural museum for Asian Americans as part of the Smithsonian

 

CHAO: Well history and culture, both.

 

ISAACSON: History and cultural museum as part of the Smithsonian on the mall. What elements of the history and culture would you like to see highlighted?

 

CHAO: Well, how many people, for example, know that Asian Americans fought in the Revolutionary War? How many Asian – how many people know that Asian Americans actually were present during the Civil War? As well, how many people know that the Transcontinental Railroad, which was a great uniter of east and west Amer- coasts in America that gave rise to this economic powerhouse that we are today, Oh, those are done by Asian Americans? There were 15,000 Chinese Americans primarily who built the Transcontinental Railroad going from California through the tough, tough, hard Sierra Madre mountains across the plains and connecting with the railroad tracks that were coming from the east. And over a thousand railroad, Chinese railroad workers died, and they were not even allowed to become US citizens. And then, of course we all know, most of us, I think, should know about the Japanese American incarceration and interment camps. And yet, how many people knew that Japanese Americans fought valiantly in the European theater to protect freedom in their homeland when their relatives and loved ones were being interned. 

So there’s a lot to know, and even now we have so many, you know, Asian Americans who are contributing to the vitality of our economy. So look at Silicon Valley. We’ve got Asian Americans who are spearheading the drive to innovation, to transformation in America and around the world. Now, this is a community that doesn’t talk very much, that doesn’t kind of, they’re kind of quiet, they’re reserved. But the FBI statistics on how many Asian Americans have been targeted and the increase in hate crimes are stunning. In one year alone, since Covid 70 — there was been, there was a increase of 77% in anti-Asian hate crimes. And the second year, that jumped to 167% increase. And in the third year, we saw increases of over three times the level of anti-Asian crimes, hatred you know, prior to covid. So, and I’m sure those statistics are actually understated, because once again, this is not a community that speaks out very much.

 

ISAACSON: Two of the most shameful periods of American history were the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1880s and then of course, the Japanese internment in World War II, to what extent do those two events still impact the psyche of the Asian American community?

 

CHAO: The Chinese Exclusion Act of the 1890s was not the only piece of legislation that barred Chinese Americans from full participation in America, you know, in American life. There were legislations stemming back to the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s. I think what’s – and of course there are other instances of great injustice to other groups within our country as well – but I think what is really important to remember is that we we’re a young country that is full of hope and promise and is willingness to admit our errors, and that we have a great capacity to change, to transform, and to learn from our mistakes. 

 

ISAACSON: You talk about the contributions of Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, especially in Silicon Valley and the technology industry. What should we be doing on immigration to — it seems like we’re clamping down to some extent on visas and immigration. Should we be opening it up more?

 

CHAO: This is a huge issue that when President Obama had complete control of the government – meaning the executive branch, the House and the Senate – even he could not come to any resolution of this particular issue. I think Republicans believe in legal migration, and so they are more in favor of a guest worker program, whereas Democrats would want amnesty and they would not like a guest worker program. But with our economy as lacking and needing workers as we do today, I mean, there are 11 million vacant jobs in America today, and the labor participation rate is quite low. When I was Secretary of Labor, the average labor participation rate was 66.4% in a population, working population of about 157 million people. Now that labor participation rate is only 62.3% post covid against same, you know, about the same population. But of course, it’s growing in the last three years. So we’re missing about six to 7 million workers. And so we need skilled workers as well. We need STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math experts. And most of the time they are exported, basically from abroad. So there are a lot of issues within the immigration field that needs addressing.

 

ISAACSON: Well wait, so do you think we should like to staple a visa on anybody who gets a good STEM education from the United States? 

 

CHAO: Well that’s exactly what Senator Bennett of Utah used to say the late Senator Bennett. And we certainly need more STEM students. So we also need to encourage our, you know, our children our grandchildren, our students here, who are native born to go more into the stem in the STEM fields, including more young girls to go into the STEM fields. It has a lot of promise. It’s the you know, it’s got lots of potential in terms of job opportunities for the future. So we need to do both. We need to allow more immigration. And this is an area, again, of great discussion and disagreement of these more skilled workers. But also we need to in somehow invest and make more interesting to our own young people who are native-born to study the STEM fields.

 

ISAACSON: Help me make sense of the labor participation rate these days after Covid, how the nature of work is changing and what seems to me at least to be a very low unemployment rate.

 

CHAO: Well, last on every — the first Friday of every month comes the unemployment numbers, and they’re held in great secrecy. So exactly, precisely 8:30 in the morning. I remember that. What we are seeing now is that after the great recession, there was a drop off of workers, some who left because of lack of opportunity, some who retired. And ever since then, we have not seen these workers come back. And it could be, again, through competition with government compensation programs. I mean, the largesse of the federal government in the last few years some was justified. I mean, clearly in March of 2020, the Cares Act was necessary because our economy was in such bad shape that the federal government basically funded, through the employers the payrolls they had to maintain to keep people, workers employed.

 

ISAACSON: But that’s been phased out now, and we actually seem to have really high employment, don’t we? 

 

CHAO: Subsequent to that –

 

ISAACSON: The economy is doing pretty good.

 

CHAO: Yeah. So subsequent to that, there were also very large government injections into the economy. So the federal government became a competitor with the private sector in terms of compensation. And many of these workers are making very rational choices as to why they’re staying out of the workforce. We’re also seeing an increase in disability. So that is also a very — it’s certainly a program that is needed by those who need it. But that has also taken workers out of the workforce. So what we’re really concerned now is whether this low unemployment rate, this low labor participation rate is permanent, and we need to get more people back into the workforce because it is vital for our economic recovery. And the unemployment rate, as you mentioned, it just came out in June — 2nd, iIt was June 1st or 2nd, 2nd, it’s you know, 3.7%. It’s below full employment. So every employer in every field is so anxious to be able to hire the workers that they need, and not having the workers available is affecting the supply chain and our ability to provide services and keep the economy going in a robust condition.

 

ISAACSON: In your Washington Post essay, and we’ve discussed it a little bit tonight, you talk about a fear that we, we might return to internment camps, a fear within the Asian American community. That’s pretty startling. Where do you sense that and can you expand on that? 

 

CHAO: I don’t have to, I don’t have to sense it. I hear it. I hear among the community, you know, I’m, I still go to events. I have friends, I’m part of the community. I mean, these are fears. That’s why I say I want to give voice to them because this is a community that hithertofore has been really hardworking. They don’t speak up they don’t complain very much. And given the level of hatred and violence directed against this community they’re fearful that such a unbelievable occurrence possibility may exist.

75% of Chinese Americans have felt the sting – and very often the physical attack – of anti-Asian hatred. They’ve been spat upon, they have been cursed at, just walking in the streets of New York City. So this is not something made up. These are people that are just going about their ordinary business, they’re commuting, and then somebody spits on them or someone tells ’em to go home. Well, America is their a home. 

 

ISAACSON: Secretary Elaine Chao, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it. 

CHAO: Thank you. You’re great patriots, and I wanna emphasize that as well.