Hawaii Representative Claims He’s ‘an Asian Trapped in a White Body’
By Leanna Chan
At an event celebrating Asian Americans and Pacific Islander members of Congress, Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) said that he is “an Asian trapped in a White body.”
Case’s words were shared in a tweet by a policy and data visualization fellow, Nicholas Wu who was attending the event.
It is unclear why or what provoked Case to say this, but what is clear is the disapproval for his comment.
“Yikes” and “Nope” are the common sentiments being expressed in response by Twitter users.
One user commented, “he defeated half a dozen other Democratic candidates in this —almost all Asian American, Native Hawaiian, or Pacific Islander candidates—to win this seat.”
After being sworn into office, Case told his new staff, “I feel the Aloha.”
Case’s spokesman Nestor Garcia commented that Case was merely speaking “on what his Japanese-American wife sometimes says about him.”
Case told HuffPost in a statement that he has “absorbed and lives the values of our many cultures. They and not my specific ethnicity are who I am, and I believe that this makes me an effective advocate on national issues affecting our [Asian and Pacific Islander] community. I regret if my specific remarks to the national API community on my full absorption of their concerns caused any offense.”
Images via Twitter / @angryasianman
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