“Whether intentional or not, his comments invoke the offensive stereotype that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners,” a fellow lawmaker said of the interior secretary.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Thursday used a Japanese greeting in response to a congresswoman’s question about preserving the history of Japanese American internment during World War II, drawing rebukes from lawmakers who said his remark was offensive.
Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, a fourth-generation American of Japanese ancestry, asked Zinke in a hearing whether he would continue a National Park Service grant program that funds research and preserves confinement sites where the government incarcerated as many as 120,000 people of Japanese descent. She said both of her grandfathers were internees.
‘‘Are you committed to continue the grant programs that are identified, I believe, as the Japanese American Confinement Sites grants program, which were funded in 2017? Will we see them funded again in 2018?’’ Hanabusa asked.
‘‘Oh, konnichiwa,’’ Zinke replied, using a Japanese greeting typically spoken in the afternoon.
After an awkward pause, Hanabusa corrected him.
‘‘I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu,’ but that’s OK,’’ she said, using the phrase for ‘‘good morning.’’ Then she moved on.
Several of Hanabusa’s colleagues voiced outrage about the exchange after it circulated social media later in the day, saying Zinke had shown a profound insensitivity toward Asian Americans.
‘‘Rather than greet her like he would any other Member of Congress, he responded to her as if she did not speak any English,’’ Rep.
