cornell president's "love affair with asia"

ECAASU, the East Coast Asian American Student Union conference, happened at Cornell over the weekend, and I've been hearing from quite a few folks who witnessed some questionable remarks from the University's President at one of the events. During his speech, he referred to the Asian American students attending the conference as immigrants, and claimed to have "a love affair with Asia." Yeah, definitely not the best choice of words. Apparently, the President's comments did not sit well with the conference-goers, because I've been getting emails like this all day:

Dear Angry Asian Man,

My name is Henry C. and I'm a student at the University of Pennsylvania. I recently attended ECAASU 2008, which was held in Cornell this past wee

I was wondering if you heard about the RACIST and INAPPROPRIATE comments that the President of Cornell spoke at one of the ECAASU events. In addition to beginning his speech with the phrase "My wife and I have come to form a LOVE AFFAIR with Asia," he also assumed the whole time that we were immigrants, when in fact, most of us were Asian Americans. By the way, he is a White man.

Anyways, just thought you'd be interested. And just for the record, the Penn contingent made sure to clarify his clear exotification of the Asian culture during Q&A.

Thanks,
Henry

Like I said, I've been getting emails like this for the last few days, all saying the same thing (some of them completely verbatim, oddly enough). I do hope that the students present made sure to let the President know how they felt about his remarks. Yo, Mr. President. What exactly does your "love affair" with Asia got to do with the East Coast Asian American Student Union?