Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) apologized on Sunday after a video surfaced showing her making a whooping noise while discussing Native Americans.
Sanchez, who announced last week that she would run to fill Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) Senate seat, made the gesture during a Saturday meeting with an Indian American group at the California Democratic Party’s convention in Anaheim, The Sacramento Bee reported.
She told the group about a meeting she had with an East Indian man. She made the noise and gesture while saying she thought she was meeting with a Native American instead.
“I am going to his office, thinking that I am going to meet with a,” she said, holding her hand up to her mouth and making a whooping noise. “Right? … because he said Indian American.”
“And I go in there and it was great. It was just great because he said ‘I want to get my community involved.’ Involved. And that was the first time that we saw the Indian American community really come,” she said.
Sanchez explained her gesture to The Sacramento Bee on Saturday.
“What I said was that I got a call from somebody from over the phone and he said I want to talk to you about having help from the Indian community, and I thought he meant the American Indian community, in the sense of the Native American Indian community,” she said.
When asked if she thought the gesture was appropriate, Sanchez said, “I think that Native Americans have an incredibly great history, and a great presence in our country, and many of them are supporting our election.”
Sanchez apologized for the gesture on Sunday after following criticism from her opponent in the Senate race, California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D).
“In this crazy and exciting rush of meetings yesterday, I said something offensive and for that I sincerely apologize,” Sanchez said, according to The Sacramento Bee.
Watch the video via KCRA News:
