After former U.S. Pres. Donald Trump secured enough votes for a second term as president, defeating Vice Pres. Kamala Harris, many in the Greater Boston area and Chinatown showed strong emotions about the results. Massachusetts voted heavily for Harris, as she won over 60% of the vote in the state, so it’s no surprise many were upset with the results. Immigration was a center of the Trump campaign, and his rhetoric was widely described as racist and xenophobic, and had some immigrant communities on edge after pledges to carry out a mass deportation.

But government officials, community leaders and some residents in Greater Boston offered a sense of unease mixed with hope and unity. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, told Bostonians that the election was “never going to change what we’re doing here in the City of Boston.”

Mayor Wu did not respond to a press inquiry before press time early on Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Maura Healy, at a press conference covered by the Boston Globe, said that “many people in Massachusetts and across the country … are very unhappy and … are having a hard time and are not pleased with the results,” and she said that many in Massachusetts “are worried about their future. This is a moment to honor those concerns, and it’s also a moment for resolve.”

She called for the state to come together and unite in the face of uncertainty. “We see so much anger and division across the country, but I know Massachusetts is a place and will be a place where we care about each other and we look after one another” she said, while also making clear that the commonwealth is “a place where we will always stand up for people’s rights and freedoms, where women will have control over their own health care decisions, and where every person is respected, valued, and heard, whoever you are, wherever you were born, whoever you love.”

Immigrant community leaders echoed similar sentiments. In a statement to Sampan, Elizabeth Sweet, the executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, noted a sense of anxiety with the election results, but vowed to keep up the “fight against xenophobic policies and rhetoric.”

“This election cycle has left immigrants who call America home, as well as hopeful immigrants in need of safe harbor, in a state of fear,” said Sweet. “Policies such as carrying out mass deportations, revoking humanitarian parole programs, and ending Temporary Protective Status are unjust and un-American. MIRA will not stand by quietly while our immigrant communities are under attack. We will tirelessly work to protect our immigrant population, and their right to due process here in Massachusetts and across the country.”

Another organization which serves the Asian American community, the Asian American Resource Workshop, offered a similarly determined voice in the wake of Trump’s reelection.
“AARW is enraged but not shocked with the results of an impending second Trump administration. Under Trump’s first administration, we experienced an uptick of detentions and deportations of Southeast Asian refugees across the nation,” Kevin Lam, co-director of the organization, told Sampan in a statement.
“As we go into a second Trump administration in the next year, we expect more intense ICE enforcement and violence coming down onto our communities, but AARW will continue to build our grassroots organizing power, and do what is necessary to keep our communities safe from mass detentions and deportations.”
Lam described Trump as authoritarian.

“Trump’s mass deportation plan is nothing short of fascism. AARW will not shy away from adversity, and instead, will seize this moment to organize a broad, multi-racial coalition to put forward demands for what we know our communities need to feel safe. 2025 will be the 50th year anniversary of the end of the War in Southeast Asia, and AARW is moving forward grounded and centered in our demands and calls for an end to all detentions and deportations, and to not allow the U.S. and federal government to absolve themselves of their responsibility in creating the conditions for the mass deportations of refugee and immigrant communities.”

Nicole Eigbrett, the other co-director of the organization, implored people to stick together ahead of what’s to come: “In such a devastating political moment, we are urging our communities to lean into solidarity and unity, rather than fear and isolation. We know that immigrants and refugees will be targeted in new authoritarian ways, so we need people to commit to showing up for each other now. Start building relationships with your neighbors, join or support an organization like AARW if you’re not already part of one, and create the alternative systems of mutual aid and care that will sustain our survival – especially when we can no longer rely on policies to protect us.”
Some Boston area residents expressed similar concerns.

“As a member of the queer community, it’s terrifying,” Aiden Nguyen, 28, told the Sampan. Originally from Vietnam and living in the U.S. since 2014, Nguyen is a graduate social work student at Boston College. He said that he doesn’t feel connected to the Vietnamese community here because he is gay. While homosexuality isn’t a crime in Vietnam, same-sex marriage is not recognized in the country.
“Take care of yourself and make sure that if you can help anyone, do that,” he said, although he expressed concern about the availability of social services going forward and encouraged people to be personally involved in their community. He also said that he hopes Bostonians can help people in “other states that maybe voted differently.” He said “we should help them first and foremost because they’re the most at risk.”

“I was actually not surprised Trump won,” said Milourdes ‘Mimi’ Augustin, 37, who was born in Haiti but moved to the United States when she was 8 and is a U.S. citizen. Augustin, who occasionally contributed to the Sampan, expressed disgust over the Trump campaign’s characterization of Haitians.
But, she said, “we survived four years of Trump, (so we can survive four more). .. I don’t think Trump is going to do this mass deportation operations because it is going to cost billions of dollars.”
She does, however, worry about immigration “raids and family separation.”