A Texas state senator, the author of a controversial bill to ban Chinese citizens from buying property in the state, made an association between her legislation and the Chinese surveillance balloon recently shot down in the U.S. And it has Asian American leaders concerned.
“This bill may prove even more significant in light of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed across the continental United States before being shot down by the US military just days ago,” Lois Kolkhorst, a Republican, told NBC News last week in response to a request for comment about her bill. “It is clear that national security concerns by everyday Texans continue to grow.”
In recent weeks, eyes have turned to Texas Senate Bill 147, which would strip citizens of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea of the right to buy land or property, including homes. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has already said he will sign it if it passes.
Asian American leaders say Kolkhorst’s attempt to tie the property bill to the surveillance balloon are not only inane, but also harmful.
“It is typical fear mongering. It is typical xenophobic behavior,” said John C. Yang, the president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen this in history time and again.”
Kolkhorst did not respond to NBC News’ request for an additional comment on the balloon’s relation to her Texas Senate bill.
National security has often been the guise for demonizing and censuring Asians in the U.S., Yang said.
“Whether it is World War II, whether it is 9/11, you can even go back to the Chinese Exclusion Act back in the 1860s, when the talk was around, how the nation was becoming less secure because of the so-called Yellow Peril,” he said. “In this way, Asian Americans have been particularly vulnerable targets.”
“China” in recent years has been conflated with “Chinese people” or “Asian people” in right-wing political rhetoric, he said.
“The main…
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