“Certainly, there’s a sense of insult to the community when a core group of its members has been portrayed negatively like this — especially when that community historically has leaned toward the Republicans” because of the party’s consistent anti-communist messaging, said Sara Sadhwani, assistant professor of politics at Pomona College who has researched voting behavior with an emphasis on the representation of racial, ethnic and immigrant communities.

Sadhwani said that while Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Indian Americans and Korean Americans have steadily leaned toward the Democratic Party, Vietnamese Americans often have followed a different path.

In a poll conducted a few months before the 2020 presidential election, Vietnamese Americans were the only Asian group to support Trump over Biden.