We now know who the Asian woman is who appeared in the controversial Pete Hoekstra campaign ad: She is Lisa Chan, 21, an actress and beauty queen. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in sociology and, based on her writings and resume, she is definitely a liberal.
And I’m quite certain that Chan definitely does not speak broken English like the Chinese stereotype she played in the ad, which Hoekstra has taken down after days of protests from critics who said it was racist.
In fact, Chan just made her second unsuccessful run for Miss California on Jan. 6, finishing in the Top 20 (out of more than 200 contestants) as Miss Napa Valley.
According to Colorlines.com, a news site, and a blogger that specializes in exposing racism against Asians, Chan at age 17 launched a non-profit group that sought to help “at-risk” kids who are victimized by educational inequality.
On the website for The Strive organization, the explanation of the group’s founding and goals says:
“…Lisa was captivated by the social inequalities in our world and quickly became inspired to carry the mission of The Bay Area Strive onto a national and eventually global level with a more digital focus and catering to teachers as well as students, leading to the (2010) birth of The Strive.
“… Why does more crime occur in places where there is less educational funding? Why is it that certain races have higher high school graduation rates than others? Environmental racism causes certain races to be concentrated in areas of designated income brackets, which in turn determine the quality of public education available in those areas.”
That doesn’t quite sound like an agenda that would be embraced by the GOP’s Hoekstra, who is trying to make the case that he’s more conservative than his Republican rivals for the Senate nomination and far more conservative than the Democratic incumbent he hopes to defeat, Sen. Debbie Stabenow.
The blogger who broke this story, known only as angryasianman.com, which is a site based in California, said he has been told that Chan feels badly about the Super Bowl Sunday ad and the barrage of criticism that called the spot anti-Asian.
The part-time actress is apparently working to prepare a public statement of apology.
You can continue to follow this story here.
