Deng Xiaoping was born/raised in sichuan, only his ancestors were kejia. I’m sure if you look at anyone in china’s family tree long enough, you’ll find a lot of mixing, which is about as weird as a German having ancestry from Italy or France. It’s even weirder, as the paternal side was originally from Sichuan moving to GD during Ming and back to Sichuan during Qing.

> Deng Xiaoping himself was Hakka, as were most of the the core CCP leadership until recently [0]

I’m going to not believe your source given how much wrong you’ve gotten already. But even if true, Chinese identity politics are more attuned to region than ethnicity. Southerners also were trusted because the KMT was heavily southern biased while the communists were the opposite. This is why the capital is in BJ and not NJ.

> Hakka is the primary language spoken in TW after Mandarin btw.

No no no. It is definitely Hokkien, a dialect of Min, which is the base dialect for Fujian.

> If you're a fellow Bay Area native, maybe visit Fremont or Richmond District in SF sometime and actually learn about us Asian subcommunities

Is that some kind of Asian American thing? You can learn plenty about Chinese ethnicities in China, why bother doing it in the states? Southern ethnicities are also over represented in overseas Chinese communities given the propensity of people from GD or FJ to go abroad, and then cultures kind of diverge a bit (another reason the CCP doesn’t trust GD/FJ).

> Deng Xiaoping was born/raised in sichuan

Guang'an, the town he was born, was and is Hakka speaking, after the Hakka-Punti wars were lost by the Hakka.

> Chinese identity politics are more attuned to region than ethnicity

I can agree with that with the post 1970 generation. Deng Xiaoping and his ilk were from before that era, during the Long March.

> It is definitely Hokkien

Yes, Hokkien is prominent in TW but so is Hakka. Around 10% Hakka speaking based on the last census.

> Is that some kind of Asian American thing

Taiwanese (and HK) American specifically. Iykyk I guess. Hence why I equally smell shit from your response.

My perspective is primarily mainland where I lived for 9 years, and primarily interacting with mainlander coworkers (eg from Fujian, talking politics was ok).