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SCREEN CAPTURE As Grand Marshall of San Francico's Chinese New Year parade Eileen Gu was greeted with cheers. |
Olympians Eileen Gu and Alysa Liu are back home in the Bay Area and their hometowns are celebrating their athletic accomplishments.
While the national media often tries to frame their careers through a lens of geopolitical tension, the local Asian American community is offering a much warmer, more nuanced embrace. From the streets of San Francisco to the rinks of Oakland, the sentiment is clear: these are our daughters, and we are proud of them.
In San Francisco, Eileen Gu recently took center stage as the Grand Marshal of the Chinese New Year Parade. Despite the "traitor" labels tossed around in the darker corners of the internet, the crowds in Chinatown roared with approval.
Community leaders have been quick to point out that Gu’s success is an affirmation of the Chinese American identity, a bridge between two worlds that many locals navigate every single day. To the people who watched her grow up, her choice to represent China isn't a betrayal—it’s a personal journey of heritage.
Across the Bay Bridge, Oakland is gearing up for a massive rally at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza to honor Alysa Liu. The vibe in the East Bay is one of pure hometown pride, focusing on Liu’s signature grit and the "Oakland swag" she brings to the ice.
FYI: The city of Oakland is planning a massive homecoming rally for Alysa Liu on Thursday, March 12 at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza in front of City Hall.
Even with the complex history involving her father’s political activism, the community is rallying behind her as a hometown hero who has navigated immense pressure with grace.
As for Alysa, she seems to be everywhere you turn as she bathed in the Olympics afterglow: on talk shows, interviews by major media and in two giant murals (one in Oakland and the other in Los Angeles where she goes to school.)
She is a lively interview. Since the Olympics she announced she would not compete in the upcoming World Skating Championship this year. Not unusual as she values her frends more than the rigors of training and then, there's school where she is majoring in psychology at UCLA.
She also said she and her family lean towards progressive causes especially around the environment and immigration, mentioning some of the "No Kings" protests in which she has participated. Liu has also defended Eileen Gu's decision to ski for China.
Liu and Gu first met each other at a Bay Area Chinese banquet when Alysa just won the US figure skating title at the age of 13. At that point, Gu was 15. They sang karaoke together, and, says Alysa, they've been friends ever since.
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| Alysa Liu is a favorite in the talk show circuit for her outspokeness and lively personality. |
Despite the heavy political discourse that has followed them since the 2022 Beijing Games, both Gu and Liu remain steadfast in their perspective: they see themselves as athletes first, regardless of whether they are representing China or the United States.
Liu has been particularly vocal in her defense of Gu, labeling the intense scrutiny over national loyalty as "hypocritical," she says in an intreview in the New York Times. She points out the irony of critics who tell immigrants to "go back to where they came from" suddenly becoming outraged when an athlete chooses to represent their ancestral heritage.
For these two, the bond of their shared Bay Area upbringing and Chinese descent outweighs the noise of international politics.What resonates most within the AAPI community is how both young women insist on being athletes first. They are rejecting the rigid binary that demands they choose one side of their identity over the other.
To Liu and Gu, it isn't about geopolitical maneuvering; it’s about a love for the game and the drive to compete at the highest level. They’ve made it clear that while flags may change, their identity as competitors and friends remains unchanged.
By standing by each other and dismissing the outside noise as "hypocritical," Liu and Gu are modeling a new kind of cultural solidarity. They prove that you can represent different flags while sharing the same roots, reminding us all that the bond of community is far stronger than any political headline.
