A racially charged political advertisement run by former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra during the Super Bowl has drawn a torrent of criticism, Xinhua reported.
Hoekstra's advertisement, part of his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat, depicted an Asian woman speaking in broken English with a heavy accent and thanking Senator Debbie Stabenow for sending money and jobs overseas.
California State Assemblyman Mike Eng issued a statement Tuesday, saying: "I am astounded and outraged by the Hoekstra campaign's use of negative Asian stereotypes for their Super-Bowl ad."
"Such blatantly racist and anti-Asian fear-mongering, such as that raised by the Hoekstra ad, has had a long and sad history in the United States, going all the way back to the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 19th Century and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. It is the 21st century and such divisive rhetoric has no place in American politics," Eng said.
On Monday, Judy Chu, the country's first Chinese-American Congresswoman and chair of the U.S. Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), said in a statement: "I am appalled at the Hoekstra campaign's offensive and insensitive Super Bowl ad that relies heavily on negative Asian stereotypes."
U.S. Congressman Mike Honda also issued a statement Tuesday: "Pete Hoekstra's Super Bowl campaign ad is a despicable example of Republican race-baiting cloaked in the guise of genuine political debate and, quite simply, is offensive to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders."
"Hoekstra stoops to using racial stereotypes and fails to engage honestly and credibly on the issues. Hoekstra merely offers the kind of ignorance and intolerance that harms every single family in Michigan and beyond," Honda said.
Bel Leong-Hong, the Democratic National Committee's Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus chair, said in a statement Tuesday: "Ads like these that play on fear and racial stereotypes must never be tolerated. Our nation deserves better representatives in Congress who can stick to the issues and not use harmful, divisive measures for political gain."
The ad also drew immediate fire from cultural and religious groups. "The Asian woman speaking in this video would be no different than him having a black person speaking in slave dialect," said the Rev. Charles Williams II of Detroit's King Solomon Baptist Church, where civil rights leader Malcolm X spoke in the 1960s.
He added that Hoekstra was "using the whole politics of fear and the whole politics of division, and he knows it."
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