It’s not subtle in the first couple of generations.
The CIA knows this. A couple of years ago I read an article about how they are shocked at how effective the PRC agents are at convincing first and even second generation Chinese-American scientists into becoming spies for them.
When I read that I laughed. I wasn’t shocked at all. if you self identify as Chinese to begin with, how hard would it be to convince you to work for the govt of China rather than the US.
The Chinese have an old saying: “not of our blood, his heart will ultimately betray us.” That is their attitude. That’s why culturally the Chinese don’t adopt children in the same numbers that western cultures do, that they are particularly confounded that Americans would go to China and adopt Chinese children. They don’t understand why we’d do it, because they would NEVER do that themselves.
All this is to say that this isn’t just about whether somebody celebrates St Patrick’s day or the Chinese New Year. In the long run who cares, that’s not important. But these cultural attitudes affect more than the the holidays we celebrate, it affects actions that are far more important. Even our national security. And frankly, although I don’t agree with all the aspect of the Japanese Internment Camps during WWII (such as property confiscation, etc). There were legitimate reasons why we did it, and we didn’t do it to the same degree to German and Italian Americans, because the level of threat from those groups are not equal, and not because “America was racist against Asians”.
Well, you just put us right back where we started.
I know one Chinese American (first generation) very well, who during his capture, rather than give away information faced a firing squad. Oh, it was a German firing squad during WWII.
And during the Cold War, I saw alot of news report of those who sold secrets to the USSR. And they didn't look Chinese to me. They didn't even look Asian.
Betraying a country has it's issue with one's character and not their cultural sentiment.