Op-Ed
Humanity First:
How Andrew Yang Made Me New Friends and Changed my Life This is a story of unity. A story of diversity. This is my personal story about Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign and the Yang Gang—how I got involved, how my perspective transformed, and how Andrew’s entrance into politics inspired hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country including me, a Cambodian American woman, to forget about our differences and demand a human-centered capitalism. By Lena Chhay Imagine this: an army veteran and for- lege graduate and activist. My network chambers led to political polarization in mer Trump voter, a Republican teacher, a was 90% Asian. My lengthy posts on Face- 2016. Unfortunately, our networks are not gay libertarian, a nuclear activist, and a book revolved around a few topics: racism, much different today in 2020. social justice warrior who caucused for sexism, and the stupidity of Donald Trump. I first read about Andrew Yang in a New Bernie Sanders (me) all walk into a bar. I listed Facebook contacts, like my dad, as York Times article. He was most known for We have pleasant conversation, play 2020 “acquaintances” to avoid Facebook com- being the candidate who proposed The election trivia, discuss upcoming volun- ment wars with people opposite from me Freedom Dividend, a universal basic inteer opportunities, then plan to meet at – namely Republicans, Trump supporters, come (UBI) of $1,000 per month given to the same time and place the following and un-woke white people. I was quick to every US adult paid for by a combination week. This was my reality every week judge others solely from their stance on of consumption taxes, carbon taxes, and from July 2019 to February 2020. We call politics and social issues. reducing bureaucratic bloat in the governourselves the Yang Gang – we are supMy then-network was an echo cham- ment. This Freedom Dividend would be a porters of 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Andrew’s message transcends political ideology, identity politics, and socio-economic status – pulling together a wholly diverse set of humans. This will not be a detailed article about Andrew Yang’s 150+ policies, or how he rose from being virtually unknown to the top 6 out of 20+ candidates. This is a story of unity. A story of diversity. This is my personal story about Andrew Yang’s 2020 campaign and the Yang Gang—how I got involved, how my perspective transformed, and how Andrew’s entrance into politics inspired hundreds of thousands of Americans across the country including me, a Cambodian American woman, to forget about our differences and demand a human-centered Lena Chhay and Andrew Yang at a town hall in Van Meter, IA capitalism. The core value from this journey I will carry on forever; it is the motto: ber, “an environment in which a person response to the automation of millions of Humanity First. encounters only beliefs or opinions that jobs across the US, such as automated reBefore I tell you about how Humanity coincide with their own and alternative tail checkout and self-driving trucks. This First changed who I am, I must first de- ideas are not considered.” I was in a woke, type of economy left alone would generscribe who I was. A year ago, I was a young progressive, social justice-driven bubble. ate billions for the wealthiest via AI and Cambodian-American professional, a col- According to one Stanford article*, echo robots, leaving American humans behind.
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March 2020 | Op-Ed
*Stanford Article: https://pcl.stanford.edu/research/2017/peterson-echo-chambers.pdf
