Andrew Yang's wife alleges 'racist disfiguration' of husband in Daily News cartoon portraying him as a tourist
Yang's devotion to NYC has been questioned after he admitted he took refuge upstate during the pandemic
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Andrew Yang’s wife Evelyn Yang took offense to an ad published in the New York Daily News depicting her husband as a tourist.
The cartoon showed Andrew Yang, one of eight contenders running to be New York City’s next mayor, emerging from the Times Square subway station while bystanders quipped, "The tourists are back."
It came after Yang drew sneers for saying on a podcast that his favorite subway stop is the heavily tourist-trafficked Times Square station, because "it's my stop," he said. Yang resides in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I can’t believe my eyes," Evelyn Yang wrote on Twitter. "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%. #StopAsianHate."
She also posted a racist cartoon of a Chinese tourist next to the cartoon from the Daily News and asked: "Which one is from 2021?"
The AAPI Victory Alliance also reacted to the cartoon. "This is disgusting and wrong. Every single day Asian Americans have to fight the notion that we are foreigners," they wrote on Twitter.
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Yang, whose first run for elected office was for the U.S. presidency, has faced criticism for being an outsider after he admitted he left the city to take refuge upstate during the COVID-19 pandemic and the revelation that he has not voted in every mayoral election from 2001 to 2017.
The Daily News ran an editorial on Sunday arguing Yang is out of touch with New Yorkers.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Andrew Yang may be a quick study, but all the cramming he’s done since jumping into the mayor’s race can’t make up for years of inattention to New York politics and policies, best evidenced by the fact that he has never bothered to vote in a local election," the newspaper wrote. The editorial board cited an event where Yang reportedly didn’t seem to understand how the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) budget works, or how much debt the MTA is in. They also pointed to a time in which he reportedly couldn’t answer a question about a local police law.
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"The mayoralty is not just for wonks who know every intricacy of city government; it ought to go to the person with the best ideas, skills, instincts and priorities. But this is ridiculous," the editorial concluded.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Yang also held a press conference Tuesday addressing both the cartoon and a recent subway attack on an Asian man.
"Characterizing anyone as being less New York than someone else on the basis of their race or religion or any other background is wrong," Yang said.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Evelyn Yang said the cartoon was part of a "pattern we have noticed since the first day we entered this race."
"People have consistently implied that we are not from here and don't belong here," she added.
Yang will face off against other Democrats in a June 22 primary. The winner of that race is widely expected to win the mayor's office in November.