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The Rebel Yellow - Issue #139
Conservative outlets have intensified coverage of New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, focusing on his family and citizenship as the election approaches. Vice President JD Vance is facing criticism for comments about wanting his Hindu wife to convert to Christianity. Meanwhile, Massachusetts could soon elect its first Asian American representative to Congress, Sandra Oh made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, and Ming-Na Wen opened up about her relationship with her mother in a viral post.
Conservative media intensifies attacks on Mamdani ahead of election
Conservative news organizations have mounted a concentrated campaign against Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani in the closing stretch before Tuesday’s mayoral election, focusing on his citizenship history and his father’s participation in an anti-Israel tribunal described by one observer as “a cesspool of London-based Hamas terrorists.”
What we’re seeing: Multiple right-leaning outlets — including Fox News, the New York Post, Breitbart News and the National Review — have collectively published dozens of critical headlines in the past two weeks. The attacks intensified Wednesday with two major stories: Fox News highlighted a 2013 Hindustan Times interview in which Mamdani’s mother, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, characterized her then-21-year-old son as “not an American at all” and “a total desi.” The Post, meanwhile, reported that Mamdani’s father, Columbia anthropology professor Mahmood Mamdani, was among the founders of the Gaza Tribunal, which seeks accountability for “Israeli perpetrators and Western enablers” but has no judicial authority.
Two Republican House members, Tennessee’s Andy Ogles and Florida’s Randy Fine, have also separately pressured federal officials to investigate and possibly revoke Mamdani’s 2018 naturalization. A National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) strategy document dated Oct. 28 outlined plans to nationalize Mamdani’s candidacy and use it to portray congressional Democrats as embracing socialism and being “hostile to America.”
What this means: As we have previously reported, the denaturalization effort faces significant legal obstacles. Federal law permits citizenship revocation only through court proceedings proving fraudulent acquisition, and deporting U.S. citizens is illegal. The allegations about Mamdani’s undisclosed Democratic Socialists of America membership are legally questionable as naturalization forms ask about communist or totalitarian party ties, and DSA is a democratic political organization that participates in U.S. elections.
The concentrated wave of attacks in the race’s final days following months of negative coverage follows a familiar pattern: intensified last-minute attacks on candidates of color questioning their loyalty and belonging. The focus on a Muslim candidate of South Asian descent by examining his family’s politics, resurfacing his mother’s decades-old cultural commentary and demanding investigation of his completed citizenship process, echoes perpetual foreigner stereotypes that portray Asian Americans and Muslim Americans as inherently un-American. The NRCC memo makes the broader objective explicit by using a local candidate’s identity to energize conservative voters nationwide through xenophobic messaging.
What Mamdani is saying: The Rebel Yellow has reached out to Mamdani’s campaign for comment on the reports. However, he directly addressed attacks against his Muslim faith last week, calling them “racist” and “baseless.” “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity, but indignity does not make us distinct. There are many New Yorkers who face it,” he said last Friday. “It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.”
Mamdani also faced scrutiny over a personal story about his aunt feeling unsafe wearing her hijab after 9/11. When questioned about family details Tuesday, he clarified he was referring to his father’s cousin, whom he has always called “aunt” — a common practice in South Asian families. He accused critics of trying to discredit his account rather than addressing his opponent’s attacks on his faith. “It just shows the idea of a Muslim woman wearing a hijab and feeling uncomfortable after 9/11 is so foreign to the right wing in this city and this country that the only answer to them is that it must be a lie,” he told Latino radio show “El Vacilon de la Manana.”
Mamdani maintains a double-digit lead over Andrew Cuomo in the latest polls heading to Tuesday’s vote.
JD Vance hopes his Hindu wife will become Christian
Vice President JD Vance has drawn criticism for publicly expressing hope that his wife, second lady Usha Vance, will abandon her Hindu faith and convert to Christianity.
What he said: Vance made his comments Wednesday while answering a question about raising children in an interfaith household during a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, which honored late co-founder Charlie Kirk. Though Usha maintains her Hindu identity, he said he desires her eventual conversion to Catholicism. “Do I hope eventually that she is somehow moved by the same thing that I was moved in by church? Yeah, I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way,” Vance told attendees while stressing that “God says everybody has free will.”
Vance converted to Catholicism in August 2019 after years of describing himself as an atheist or agnostic. He wed Usha in 2014 in ceremonies that incorporated both Christian and Hindu traditions. Their three children are being raised Christian, with their eldest, 8, receiving his first Communion last year.
What others are saying: The remarks sparked backlash primarily among Indian Americans who saw them as devaluing Usha’s cultural and religious identity. Commentator Deep Barot called Vance “the biggest hypocrite” for downplaying Usha’s Hindu upbringing, noting “they even had a Vedic Hindu wedding and one of his kids’ name is Vivek.” Fellow commentator Nirmalya Dutta made similar criticisms, observing that Vance had previously acknowledged his wife’s faith as inspiration for exploring his own spirituality.
Usha, for her part, has been clear about maintaining her religious heritage. Raised in San Diego by Indian immigrant parents, she told Fox News last year that her parents’ Hindu faith is “one of the things that made them such good parents.” In a June interview with Meghan McCain, she said she was “not intending to convert” and described giving her children “plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them, to things that we show them, to the recent trip to India.”
The big picture: Vance’s comments underscore mounting concerns about his approach to Asian American communities and questions of cultural respect. Usha herself has been the target of racist attacks last year, but he has not publicly condemned them. Most recently, the vice president has also refused to denounce racist remarks about Chinese and Indian Americans discovered in leaked Telegram messages exchanged by Young Republican officials. He instead labeled them “edgy, offensive jokes” made by “kids,” though participants were adults serving in government roles.
At the Mississippi gathering, he took a combative tone when one young woman posed multiple questions linking his interfaith marriage to immigration policy, saying, “I’m going to finish answering the question, and then, you know, if I’ve answered all nine of your questions in less than 15 minutes.”
Massachusetts poised for its 1st Asian American rep in Congress
Two Asian American Democrats are vying to make history in Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District: Dan Koh, a former Biden administration official, and Tram Nguyen, a sitting state representative, are competing to fill the seat left open by Rep. Seth Moulton’s Senate bid against Ed Markey.
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