I was born in Los Angeles to Chinese American parents. My father was a World War II veteran, and my mother was an immigrant. I graduated from UCLA, spent my professional career teaching psychology in community colleges and have served in elected office for 37 years — going from the City Council to Congress.
And so it might surprise many that my loyalty to the U.S. — and with it my American identity — was recently questioned by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, on a Fox News show hosted by Jesse Watters. Rep. Gooden, who tried to nullify the 2020 presidential election results, stated unequivocally that I should no longer have a security clearance or access to classified information. Despite criticism, he restated those views last week.
I wasn’t surprised.
My loyalty to the U.S. — and with it my American identity —was recently questioned by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, on a Fox News show.
His ugly and false accusations build on the centuries-long stereotype that Chinese Americans and Asian Americans more broadly are forever foreigners in their own land — no matter whether they just arrived, they are naturalized American citizens or they have been here for generations.
Rep. Gooden and his colleagues used false evidence to attack both me and Dominic Ng — a respected business leader whom President Biden appointed as chair of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Advisory Council. I wasn’t going to let this malicious, xenophobic attack silence me in any way. And so, I have called these comments out for what they are: outrageous, disgusting and absolutely racist.
We would be mistaken if we think, however, that these kinds of attacks will end with us. Before the attacks made it onto Fox News prime time, they were being leveled against us by an extreme, far-right outlet known for spreading disinformation.
The outlet’s co-founder, Tucker Carlson, now spends his daily hour on Fox News prime time regularly promoting the racist “great replacement”…
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