Andrew Yang’s wife, Evelyn Yang, blasted the New York Daily News for its cartoon depicting the mayoral candidate as a tourist, calling the image a “racist disfiguration.”
The cartoon, created by Bill Bramhall, shows Yang emerging from the Times Square subway stop, with a tourist shop owner remarking: “the tourists are back!”
Yang’s wife issued the following statement on Twitter Monday evening: “I can’t believe my eyes. To publish this racist disfiguration of @AndrewYang as a tourist, in NYC where I was born, where Andrew has lived for 25 years, where our boys were born, where 16% of us are Asian and anti-Asian hate is up 900%.”
AAPI Victory Alliance, an Asian American and Pacific Islander advocacy group, also criticized the the cartoon, saying it is “disgusting and wrong.”
The group tweeted: “Every single day Asian Americans have to fight the notion that we are foreigners. We are here and we’re not going anywhere. That’s why AAPI representation like @andrewyang is so important. Do better @NYDailyNews.”
Over the past year, nearly 4,000 anti-Asian hate incidents have been reported. Some have traced this spike in anti-Asian sentiment to former President Donald Trump’s use of the term “China virus” to describe COVID-19.
