Don't speak Korean

By John Burton

Xenophobia is nothing new in U.S. politics, but it appears to be reaching new lows in the latest congressional campaigns ahead of the Nov. 6 elections. One example is a white Democrat candidate in Buffalo, New York, who has been attacked by his Republican opponent for speaking Korean, implying he is un-American.

Nate McMurray is a lawyer who graduated from the prestigious University of California Hastings College of Law in San Francisco and studied at the Constitutional Court of Korea under a Fulbright scholarship. He taught U.S. law at the Judicial Research and Training Institute in Seoul. He has also represented U.S. companies in Asia, worked with Barun Law in Seoul and another foreign law firm in China, and served as a legal adviser to Samsung.

McMurray earlier this year released a video on social media, where he introduced himself and bowed before the camera before speaking in Korean about his hopes for peace between the two Koreas after the inter-Korean summits.

His Republican opponent, Congressman Chris Collins, decided to use the video in an attack ad, which featured McMurray speaking over an ominous music score as captions written by the Collins campaign appear to suggest he was calling for "fewer jobs for us…More jobs for China and Korea."

Then another caption appeared stating that McMurray "helped American companies hire foreign workers," while a picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pops up in the background. "You can take Nate McMurray at his word," the ad concludes as he continues to speak in Korean.

Although what McMurray is actually saying in the ad about peace is clearly understandable to anyone who knows Korean, the ad paints a sinister image for anyone else by suggesting he is a mysterious figure who is selling out America and consorts with Asian tyrants.

The Collins campaign also sent election flyers to local homes that state "Nate McMurray lobbied to send our jobs to China (And Korea too)"and then declared "Nate McMurry: American job exporter. Nate McMurray spent many years in Asia working to identify cheap labor and offshoring opportunities for American companies. He lobbied for trade deals that outsourced thousands of U.S. jobs to China and Korea ― doubling our trade deficit and devastating American businesses."

McMurray, whose Korean wife is a naturalized U.S. citizen, called the TV ad "hurtful" to his family. "I watched that ugly attack ad with my son. His mom is Korean. My son speaks Korean," he tweeted. "He looked at me with a grave sadness on his face."

"They've used everything in their power to make it look like the very fact of speaking Korean or Chinese is un-American or wrong," McMurray told the New York Times.

The Collins campaign said the attack ad was justified since McMurray had supported the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, which it falsely claimed had "shipped nearly 100,000 U.S. jobs overseas."PolitiFact, an independent organization that assesses the accuracy of statements made by politicians, labeled the Collins claims as "false."

Collins, who was the first person in U.S. Congress to endorse Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign, may have decided he needed to take desperate measures to be re-elected. In August, he was indicted for insider share trading involving a New Zealand drug company he partly owns. Collins denies the charges, but he faces decades in prison if convicted.

The district is normally heavily Republican and Collins continues to have a slight lead over McMurray, according to the latest opinion polls.

An attack by a Republican on McMurray for his ties to Korea seems somewhat odd since the handful of Korean-Americans running for Congress or other state offices this year are mostly Republicans themselves.

In my own congressional district in Arlington, Virginia, for example, a young Korean-American, Thomas Oh, is challenging the incumbent congressman. He is facing an uphill struggle since the district is strongly Democratic.

In neighboring Maryland, the campaign for the Republican governor, Larry Hogan, features his half-Korean stepdaughter in a TV ad that extolls her father for helping protect healthcare benefits for citizens. Yumi Kim, Hogan's wife, is an artist and the first Korean-born first lady of a U.S. state.

Two other congressional races involving Korean-Americans could help determine whether the U.S. House of Representatives stays Republican or goes Democratic since both districts are considered toss-ups.

In southern California, Young Kim, who was the first Korean-American Republican woman to become a state legislator in California, is fighting to retain an open Republican seat.

Meanwhile, Andrew Kim, a former defense policymaker in Washington, D.C., and the only Korean-American running as a Democrat for Congress, is seeking to capture a New Jersey seat held by the Republicans.

Given the increasing political clout of Korean-Americans, politicians may want to be more careful of engaging in ethnic slurs in the future.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.