Now in his sixth regular legislative session as a member of a largely powerless minority caucus, state Representative Gene Wu, a 45-year-old Houstonian, has cultivated a number of strategies for a Texas Democrat to stay busy. He battles trolls on Twitter; he searches for marginal ways to make state systems work better for vulnerable kids; and lately he’s taken off as a political communicator on Reddit.
An immigrant originally from China, he’s spent years battling xenophobia in Texas’ Capitol. In 2017, he gave a memorable and tearful floor speech decrying that year’s anti-“sanctuary cities” bill, and this year he fought against a bill that would have banned land sales to citizens from certain countries, including China. He represents a district where 71 percent speak a language other than English at home.
He’s long been pugnacious on Twitter, and when Democrats in 2021 broke quorum to oppose anti-voting legislation, he was among the most strident and stubborn holdouts. In a recent development, he’s posted videos on Reddit explaining topics from lobbying to marijuana policy, sometimes while sipping a whiskey rocks. The Texas Observer spoke with him about bomb-throwing, Democratic discourse, and white supremacy.
TO: You’ve spent a decade now in the minority party in the Texas House of Representatives. Why?
Because somebody has to do it. Ultimately, my heart is in public policy, and there’s a lot of stuff that needs to be done outside of red-meat issues for either side. We’re in the Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee right now reforming Child Protective Services, the juvenile justice system. Those kinds of things need people to work on them regardless of whether you’re in power.
Some of your fellow House Democrats seem to have taken a more conciliatory approach toward Republican leadership and, in turn, gotten committee chairmanships. Do you think it’s more impactful to stick to principles than to try to play the game in that way?
I don’t think there’s a right answer either way. It’s publicly known that I’m not someone who bows to the Republican leadership, but at the same time, I’m not openly antagonistic toward them except on certain policy issues. Everyone should just play to whatever their personality is. And obviously, there are some people who are just natural bomb-throwers. Go throw bombs, then. And some people are naturally more collaborative and cooperative.
I remember I was at home, on my laptop, when you gave that House floor speech against the anti-”sanctuary cities” bill way back in 2017.
Ah, yes.
A lot of people saw that, of course.
It went viral, 80 million views.
Yes.
I get random people, I remember very clearly, I was outside of Houston, and some teenage girl came up to me and said, “Hey, I want to tell you something from my father,” and then he comes over and the young girl says, “My dad doesn’t speak English very well, but he told me to tell you that he saw you on the video, and it was really important for him.”
I think it was so affecting because you were explaining that everything lawmakers were saying that night struck you a certain way because you’re an immigrant yourself, right there in the same chamber as all of them.
And I represent a district that’s 80 percent immigrants, including many who are undocumented. They still take care of everyone. They clean everyone’s office buildings; they clean up people’s houses; they mow their yards; they make your food; and you guys are happy when they’re taking care of you, but now you want to abuse them.
Fast-forwarding to now, there is the bill, which you’ve helped push to modify, about Chinese citizens, other citizens, not being able to buy property. There’s also a border militia bill. What’s gone wrong with our state’s attitude toward immigrants?
I don’t think it’s a state issue. This is a national movement that’s anti-immigrant, that’s toward rolling back minority participation, minority rights—everything. The anti-DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] stuff, the anti-CRT [critical race theory] stuff, the anti-immigrant movement. It’s all tied together under one auspice: A lot of these little things had a very strong white-supremacist basis. From the 20,000-foot view, America goes through these waves of extremism, these waves of anti-immigrant feelings, anti-Asian feelings, anti-Latino feelings, and we’re just now at the crest of this wave. The anti-immigrant wave is coinciding with the anti-Black wave, the anti-Hispanic wave, the anti-LGBTQ+ wave. There’s a sense of “We have to put these people back in their place.”
Would you call the governor a white supremacist?
I think, obviously, that’s something to be more careful about. A lot of these things have white supremacist roots—whether or not that’s the reason they’re carrying it, whether or not that’s where it came from—I don’t know.
I have to touch on Reddit. That’s your new thing lately getting media attention is that you are the lawmaker on Reddit.
I’ve been on Reddit for many years and would never post—just lurk and see the funny memes and watch people fight over stupid things. But what made me finally register an account was I had to do an Ask Me Anything [AMA] for President Joe Biden. Those kinds of things kicked me off and made me start having a formal account, or at least a non-burner account. I have a burner account—don’t worry about that.
I am an investigative reporter.
You will not find my burner account, I promise you; I don’t post anything on it.
Strictly lurking?
Strictly lurking. But one of the reasons I like it, especially coming off Twitter, which is now more obnoxious than ever, is that I’m by nature kind of a troll—I mean more than kind of—but I also enjoy having a real discussion with people if they’re willing to listen and not just call people names. Reddit is especially good for these kinds of discussions because the way posts are voted up and down creates a system where if you’re going to troll, you better be really funny, because if your trolling is pathetic you’ll just get voted down; your comment will disappear. And the thing that made me say, “Fine I’ll do this,” is that I watched so many different people on Reddit say, “I’m genuinely frustrated with government, with my representation, and I don’t know what to do.” So I finally had to jump in saying, “You can still do stuff, this is how you do it.” That is hard to explain in a tweet—and after you do like ten tweets in a thread, people stop reading it. But on Reddit, you can write this giant post and people will read through it and they’ll criticize something that’s, like, at the very bottom.
It’s a better version of democratic engagement and discussion.
Yeah, and I felt bad for people on Reddit who genuinely seem like they care, but they felt frustrated. I wanted to be able to say there is at least one person here who is listening to you; somebody in the government cares that you have thoughts and feelings.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
