Interiior Secretary doesn't understand how 'Konnichiwa' was an insult

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke doesn't understand his racist gaffe during a hearing.

SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR Ryan Zinke thought he was being welcoming by greeting Rep. Colleen Hanabusa with a Japanese greeting "Konnichiwa."

During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing today on the Department of Interior’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget proposal, Secretary Ryan Zinke responded to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI) by making a racially insensitive comment in reference to her Japanese heritage.

After hearing her appeal to reinstate funding for a program that would preserve the WWII detention camps for Japanese Americans during which he told the secretary that her own grandparents were placed in those internment camps, Zinke's first response was "Oh,  Konnichiwa," the Japanese afternoon greeting.

Zinke got zinged on social meda for what many Asian/Americans saw as an insensitive remark at best, an insult at worst.

On Saturday (March 17), Zinke asked reporters: "How could ever saying 'good morning' be bad?"

RELATED: Zinke's racist remark mars Congressional hearing

Well, let's count the ways.

First, since it was still morning, the correct greeting in Japanese would be ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ as Hanabusa corrected him.

Secondly, Hanabusa was born and raised in Hawaii, which (in case Zinke needs to be reminded) is one of the states in the U.S.A. She is a fourth-generation American.

“Whether intentional or not, his comments invoke the offensive stereotype that Asian Americans are perpetual foreigners regardless of how long their families have lived in the United States," said Rep. Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. "What is even more alarming is that Secretary Zinke made this stereotype immediately after my colleague discussed the abhorrent racial prejudice that her grandparents and other Japanese Americans endured during World War II due to government-sanctioned profiling.

“It is absolutely outrageous that Interior Secretary Zinke chose to racialize Congresswoman Hanabusa’s identity after she spoke about the importance of preserving funding for the Japanese American Confinement Sites where nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans were unjustly incarcerated during World War II. Rather than greet her like he would any other Member of Congress, he responded to her as if she did not speak any English.

It would have been especially cool if Hanabusaresponded in German, the language of Zinke's immigrant ancestors, "Sprechen wir doch auf Englisch" (Let's speak in English.).

“Secretary Zinke’s remark was both inappropriate for the occasion and insensitive to Congresswoman Hanabusa, who had just imparted a deeply personal story of her grandfathers both being held in internment camps," said the Asian Americans Advancing Justice in a statement. 

"Instead of showing sensitivity toward the subject and Representative Hanabusa, Secretary Zinke chose that inopportune time to share his lack of Japanese cultural knowledge when he responded flippantly, ‘Oh, Konnichiwa’ rather than offer a serious reply to the Congresswoman’s question. His remark also demonstrates the “perpetual foreigner” problem faced by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) tweeted in response: "Nope. Racism is not ok."

The exchange also drew the ire of Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who slammed Zinke for acting "flippant" and "juvenile" in his response to Hanabusa's question.

Hanabusa tweeted Saturday night she wanted to focus on how the "administration ignored one of the most racially motivated periods in American history by defunding the Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) grant program." She also wrote that when Zinke "decided to greet me in Japanese (when no one else was greeted in their ancestral language), I understood this is precisely why Japanese Americans were treated as they were more than 75 years ago."

The most appropriate response Zinke should have made would have been to acknowledge Rep. Hanabusa’s tragic story and respect the history of the incarceration of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans as a shameful, a dark chapter in U.S. history that should be remembered as such by this administration.  

"Zinke’s gaffe demonstrates how little we have learned from our history and why the administration must continue to fund these memorials,” concluded the AAAJ statement.
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Interior secretary's flippant remark mars hearing on funding for WWII internment camps

Rep. Coleen Hanabusa corrects Sec. of the Interior Ryan Zinke, "But, that's OK."

HAWAII'S Rep. Coleen Hanabusa's plea for funding for the WWII internment camps almost went off the rails when Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke responded in a manner that surprised everyone in the room.

Hanabusa shared the incidentl Thursday (March 15) morning in a hearing with the interior secretary, trying to persuade him to restore around $2 million in grant funds for organizations dedicated to preserving the memory of that ugly chapter in American history.

“I sit before you the granddaughter of two internees, both of my grandfathers were interned during World War II,” Hanabusa said. “It is essential that we as a nation recognize our darkest moments so that we don’t have them repeat again.”

“My grandfather was born in Hawaii and is a citizen by birth,” Hanabusa noted during the hearing. Despite being a U.S. citizen, however, he was imprisoned in an Oahu camp called Honouliuli ― though the prisoners there used a different name: “jigokudani,” or “Hell’s Valley.”

“Are you committed to continue to 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.

For reasons that remain unclear, Zinke replied, “Oh, konnichiwa,” a Japanese greeting typically used in midday

After an awkward pause, Hanabusa, who is a 4th-generation American, broke the tension with a terse, “I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ [good morning], but that’s OK.”

The lone Asian/American in the hearing audience reacted to Sec. Ryan Zinke's remark - jaw drop

Zinke's odd remark later drew the reaction from Hawaii's Sen. Mazie Hirono. the first U.S. senator born in Japan and the first Asian/American woman elected to the chamber.“The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke,” tweeted the senator.

“What you thought was a clever response to @RepHanabusa was flippant & juvenile,” Hirono wrote on Twitter.

After the brief exchange at the hearing, Zinke said funding for the grants “probably got caught up” by larger 2018 budgetary items, and vowed to work with Hanabusa on the matter.

The Japanese American Confinement Sites Grant Program, which Congress established to preserve sites where Japanese/Americans were detained during World War II, a time of rampant anti-Japanese sentiment. As the congresswoman mentioned, Trump’s 2019 budget proposal, unveiled in February, would eliminate funding for the program ― a move widely criticized by Asian/American activists.

“I will look at it and I will work with you on it because I think it is important,” Zinke told her.

“The JACS grant program is an important component of our country’s recognition of the egregious wrong that was done, and the need to remember and preserve that history so that it not be repeated,” stated the Japanese-American Citizens League in a letter.

Rep. Hanabusa's appeal and Ryan Zinke's odd response is the first 14 minutes.

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