OC Asian American and Pacific Islander Community Leaders Accuse Weiss Campaign of “Othering” Min

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community leaders in Orange County have issued an open letter criticizing the Joanna Weiss CA-47 campaign of false accusations and anti-Asian racism against State Senator Dave Min, the Democratic Party-endorsed candidate for that seat.  January 29 A3 Open letter Weiss ad (which includes links to two LiberalOC posts!), but to make it easier, the cut and paste is below.

As of 8AM Tuesday, no response from the Weiss campaign on social media.  Her Monday 5PM Instagram live chat was cancelled at the last minute and a scheduling conflict was cited as the reason why.

January 29, 2024

Last week, in the latest of many campaign missteps, Joanna Weiss’ congressional campaign launched a divisive attack ad against fellow Democratic candidate for the
47th District, Dave Min. The message of the video ad was that Min, an Asian American State Senator, could not be trusted. The attack ad was not only deliberately misleading,
falsely accusing Min, a finance law professor, of breaking a campaign finance pledge, but it also utilized racist ideas popularized by the Yellow Peril of the 1800s which still
persist today in the form of Asians being viewed as “perpetual foreigners” and “inscrutable Orientals” who can not be trusted. It’s this kind of “othering” that led to the
Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese incarceration, and in recent years, the wrongful prosecution of Asian American scientists for suspected disloyalty.

As members and leaders in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in Orange County, we are tired of so-called allies in anti-racism resorting to the
language of “othering” to discredit fellow Democrats. This isn’t the first attempt by Weiss’ campaign to characterize Min using harmful anti-Asian stereotypes like
questioning his trustworthiness, which makes us question her ability to properly represent AAPI community members, who account for 24% of the district’s population.
We remind all candidates to practice cultural awareness and sensitivity to the experiences of those communities they strive to represent.

Signed,
● Susan Lew, Asian Americans in Action Network, 47th District Constituent
● Tammy Kim, Vice-Mayor, City of Irvine*
● Mary Ann Foo, Community leader and 47th District Constituent
● Naz Hamid, Democratic Central Committee AD-73*
● Arnel Dino, Vice-Chair, Orange County and Past Chair of Filipino American
Democratic Caucus of CA Democratic Party*
● Eugene W. Fields, California Democratic State Central Committee Delegate,
Democratic Party of Orange County*
● Mari Fujii, 1st Vice Chair, Democrats of Greater Irvine
● Nathaniel Epstein, Esq., Asian Americans in Action Network
● Irene Kinoshita, Community advocate
● Patty Oh, Nonprofit Director
● Priscilla Huang, Nonprofit Director

*Titles for identification purposes only