Japanese-American senator hits Zinke over ‘flippant’ response on preserving internment sites 
 
 Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) on Thursday called it “flippant & juvenile” for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to respond to a question about preserving internment sites with a Japanese greeting. 
 
 “The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke,” tweeted Hirono, the first U.S. senator born in Japan and the first Asian-American woman elected to the chamber. 
 
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 During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing earlier in the day, Zinke was pressed by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), a fourth-generation Japanese-American, to commit to refunding a National Park Service program that offers grants toward the preservation of confinement camps where Japanese-Americans were held during World War II. 
 
 “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. 
 
 “Oh, konnichiwa,” Zinke replied, deploying a Japanese greeting typically used in midday. 
 
 After a brief silence, Hanabusa corrected Zinke, using the Japanese greeting for “good morning.” 
 
 “I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu,’ but that‘s OK,” she said. 
 
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 Zinke’s remark later drew scrutiny from the Hawaii senator online. 
 
 “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. 
 
 “I will look at it and I will work with you on it because I think it is important,” Zinke told her. 
 
 Hanabusa, who said her two grandparents were subjected to internment, framed the program as a necessity during the hearing. 
 
 “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.” ||||| Let’s all hope President Donald Trump’s next candidate for secretary of state isn’t Ryan Zinke. Because as evidenced by a stupid blunder on Thursday, diplomacy isn’t his strong suit. 
 
 The incident centers around Zinke’s tone-deaf reaction to Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-Hawaii), whose grandfathers were incarcerated by the U.S. government during World War II for their Japanese heritage. She said one of her grandfathers, a U.S. citizen, didn’t speak about the painful experience until much later in life. 
 
 Hanabusa shared the detail Thursday morning in a hearing with the interior secretary, seeking 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 believe that it is essential that we as a nation recognize our darkest moments so that we don’t have them repeat again,” Hanabusa urged Zinke. 
 
 “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.” 
 
 After listening to her concerns, and for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Zinke responded to the U.S. representative with a cheery and extremely tone-deaf “Konnichiwa!” 
 
 The phrase ― which, let’s remember, Hanabusa’s grandfather imprisoned on Oahu was a U.S. citizen ― means “good afternoon” or “good day” in Japanese. If you’re wondering what sort of reaction it prompted from the audience, here’s a perfectly good summary: 
 
 House Natural Resources Committee Democrats 
 
 A short yet painfully awkward silence followed, as indicated by the shocked woman in the above photo. 
 
 Hanabusa broke the tension with a terse, “I think it’s still ‘ohayo gozaimasu’ [good morning], but that’s OK.” 
 
 Several social media users, including many Asian-Americans, took to Twitter to express their disappointment over Zinke’s handling of a sensitive topic. Some labeled his choice of greeting as “racist”: 
 
 Once a friend of mine accidentally said “Konichiwa” to a Japanese waitress in a Japanese restaurant when he meant to say “Arigatou” and spent the meal so mortified he barely ate and also, Ryan Zinke is racist af. https://t.co/VwsT7RVKzY — shing yin khor (@sawdustbear) March 15, 2018 
 
 Hanabusa had been inquiring specifically about 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 Japanese-American activists. 
 
 “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,” the Japanese American Citizens League wrote in a statement. ||||| LANSING, Mich. — The portrayal of a young Asian woman speaking broken English in a Super Bowl ad being run by U.S. Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra against Michigan incumbent Debbie Stabenow is bringing charges of racial insensitivity. 
 
 GOP consultant Nick De Leeuw flat-out scolded the Holland Republican for the ad. 
 
 "Stabenow has got to go. But shame on Pete Hoekstra for that appalling new advertisement," De Leeuw wrote on his Facebook page Sunday morning. "Racism and xenophobia aren't any way to get things done." 
 
 The nonpartisan Asian & Pacific Islander American Vote group's Michigan chapter said it was "deeply disappointed" by the ad, noting that the Asian-American community is a major contributor to Michigan's economy. In 2010, Michigan's 236,490 Asian-Americans made up 2.4 percent of the state's population, up 35 percent from 2000. 
 
 "It is very disturbing that Mr. Hoekstra's campaign chose to use harmful negative stereotypes that intrinsically encourage anti-Asian sentiment," the group said in a statement. 
 
 Hoekstra campaign spokesman Paul Ciaramitaro said the ad is meant to be satirical. Hoekstra's Facebook page, which by early evening was getting a barrage of criticism on the ad, snapped back that those "trying to make this an issue of race demonstrates their total ignorance of job creation policies." On YouTube, the ratings buttons on the ad were disabled after it aired. 
 
 "Democrats talk about race when they can't defend their records," Ciaramitaro said. "The U.S. economy is losing jobs to China because of Stabenow's reckless spending policies. China is reaping the reward." 
 
 The 30-second ad was filmed in California and never mentions China directly. It opens with the sound of a gong and shows a young Asian woman riding a bike on a narrow path lined by rice paddies. 
 
 Stopping her bike, the woman smiles into the camera and says, "Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spenditnow. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow." 
 
 The scene then shifts to Hoekstra telling viewers near a cozy fire, "I think this race is between Debbie Spenditnow and Pete Spenditnot." 
 
 The Hoekstra campaign set up a website, , that features the ad and includes Chinese writing, paper lanterns, parade dragons and Stabenow's face on a Chinese fan. It accuses the Democratic senator of "pouring American dollars into the Chinese economy." http://www.DebbieSpendItNow.com 
 
 Democrats were quick to challenge the premise of the ad, referring to Hoekstra's 18 years in the U.S. House and the fact that he joined a Washington-based law and lobbying firm last year. 
 
 "Hoekstra's ad is nothing more than a hypocritical attempt at a Hollywood-style makeover because the fact is, Pete spends a lot," Michigan Democratic Chairman Mark Brewer said. "Hoekstra voted for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and voted for trillions more in deficit spending before quitting Congress to get rich at a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm." 
 
 Hoekstra GOP Senate rival Gary Glenn of Midland struck a similar theme. 
 
 "Saving America from the Washington, D.C., politicians who gave us this crippling debt and deficit crisis, Republican and Democrat alike, means Hoekstra and Stabenow should both get benched," Glenn said in a release. 
 
 In response to the Hoekstra ad, the state Democratic Party launched a website, hoekstrahoax.com, as well as a 60-second Web ad Sunday that shows a 2010 campaign ad run against Hoekstra by GOP gubernatorial rival Mike Cox. 
 
 Hoekstra's hoping to get the same bump from his ad that now-Gov. Rick Snyder got with his 2010 Super Bowl ad portraying himself as "one tough nerd." Both ads were created by media strategist Fred Davis of California-based Strategic Perception Inc. 
 
 The new ad is a twist on the anti-Republican "moving jobs to China" theme that Michigan Democrats successfully used against 2006 GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos and tried to use against Snyder in 2010. This time, the focus isn't on Republican businessmen sending jobs to China but on what Hoekstra says is Democratic overspending that has weakened the U.S. economy. 
 
 Stabenow, who's running for a third term, has pushed for trade policies aimed at China that impose duties and penalties on countries that manipulate their currency and penalize companies that steal intellectual property from U.S. companies. She's using the Hoekstra ad to raise money for her campaign, which already has nearly $6 million on hand. 
 
 Hoekstra's campaign is spending $75,000 to air the ad statewide Sunday. It aired in the Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo areas before the Super Bowl began and during the game in the Traverse City, Flint, Lansing and Marquette media markets, the campaign said. 
 
 The ad is set to run over the next two weeks on cable TV shows targeted at GOP voters. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Kathy Barks Hoffman at http://twitter.com/kathybhoffman
– Perhaps Ryan Zinke wanted to show off his foreign language skills at a hearing Thursday, but it ended with reprimands in very plain English. Politico and HuffPost report the Interior secretary attended a gathering of the House Natural Resources Committee and was asked about a commitment to $2 million in grants to preserve WWII's Japanese-American internment camps; President Trump's proposed budget for next year doesn't include that funding. Pressing Zinke for a pledge was Rep. Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, whose grandfathers were among those detained in the camps during the war. One of her grandfathers, a US citizen kept in Oahu's "Hell's Valley" camp, couldn't even talk about his experience there until he was much older. After relaying that background, Hanabusa asked Zinke: "Will we see [the grants] funded again in 2018?" To which a smiling Zinke replied, "Oh, konnichiwa," which Politico notes is a Japanese greeting used midday; the hearing was taking place in the AM. After a pause, Hanabusa filled Zinke in on the correct terminology, answering, "I think it's still 'ohayo gozaimasu,' but that's OK." Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono, herself born in Japan, slammed Zinke later on Twitter, posting: "The internment of nearly 120,000 Japanese Americans is no laughing matter, @SecretaryZinke. What you thought was a clever response to @RepHanabusa was flippant & juvenile." Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, born in Thailand, was more direct, tweeting, "Nope. Racism is not ok." No word from Zinke on the kerfuffle, but he said at the hearing he'd work with Hanabusa on the funding "because I think it is important." (He's still facing questions about a $139K door.)