USA Today examined information about donors to causes touted by the Proud Boys–from fundraisers for injured members to funding travel for the January 6th rally (and subsequent domestic terror attack at the Capitol)–and found a surprising concentration of donors among Chinese-Americans and people from China and Hong Kong.

The data examined by USA Today came from public records and hacked information from a website GiveSendGo which hosted a fundraiser for members of the Proud Boys who was injured when the group started rioting in Washington, DC in mid-December.  The data show that 80% of the $106,107 raised came either from people with Chinese-heritage surnames or people living in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Chinese-Americans say it’s because the Proud Boys have branded themselves not as a white nationalist group or a nativist group, but as true American patriots fighting communism.  The Proud Boys have marketed themselves as dedicated to fighting (what they call) the communists in the Black Lives Matter movement and in antifa.  (In fact, neither BLM nor antifa have connections to communists.)  They’re also adamant supporters of Donald Trump.

Conservative media personalities such as Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have glommed on to the portrayal of the Proud Boys as a patriotic movement while ignoring their connection to white nationalist groups or the propensity of their members to flash White Power signs in photographs.

“You have to understand how we feel – we came from communist China and we managed to come here and we appreciate it here so much,” Rebecca Kwan, who sent the Proud Boys $500 on Christmas Day, told USA Today. “The Proud Boys are for Trump and they are fighting antifa, and can you see anything good that antifa did except destroy department stores and small businesses?”

Chinese and Chinese Americans funded the Proud Boys prior to the January 6th coup attempt, for which 21 members of the group were arrested.  The donors called them “patriots,” “heroes” and “defenders of freedom.”

The Proud Boys have leveraged the view that they’re the only line of defense in combating communism, and they’ve set BLM and antifa as the enemies to American freedom.  They’ve used this in fundraising campaigns and outreach programs.  While it’s true the Proud Boys don’t identify as a white nationalist organization, they do have ties to them.  And the Proud Boys share one common desire.

“The Proud Boys are a very attractive place for men of any ethnic background who are part of a toxic masculinity,” Jennifer Ho, president of the Association for Asian American Studies, said. “Because what they share is a fundamental belief in their maleness – a fundamental belief that U.S. society has gone off the rails.”