Why This Chef Doesn't Want IvankaTrump.com's Coverage Of Her

What do you do when someone offers you press coverage — but with a brand that many see as associated — or, ahem, complicit — with the Trump administration? Angela Dimayuga, the executive chef of Mission Chinese Food, responded with a polite, but firm, “Nope.” The chef declined to be covered by IvankaTrump.com, a website about working women founded by Ivanka Trump. Dimayuga posted her response to the request on Instagram, and pointed out that, as someone who is a queer person of color and whose parents are immigrants, she’s not willing to associate with — and ultimately bring profit to — a website with close ties to the Trump family and the Trump administration.

Last week, Dimayuga received a request from freelance writer and IvankaTrump.com contributor Adi Heyman requesting an interview to “[spotlight Dimayuga’s] work as a strong female entrepreneur.” Heyman wrote that the profile would be featured on IvankaTrump.com, which she described as “a non-political platform of empowerment for modern working women.”

“I read the request while I was expediting service, and I nearly screamed,” Dimayuga told ELLE.com. She crafted her response to the request with her friend and activist Shakirah Simley; she felt that it was important to speak up about her objections. “I felt lied to — I wanted to disagree with her statement that ‘[IvankaTrump.com] is a non-political platform to empower women’ and do it graciously in disparaging the brand and not the writer,” she told ELLE.com.

You can read her response in full:

Hi Adi, Thank you for thinking of me. I’m glad you are a fan of my work so much that you want to provide more visibility for my career to inspire “other working women.” However, I’m for women who actually empower other women. I don’t believe that IvankaTrump.com is truly “a non-political platform of empowerment for [women]”.

So long as the name Trump is involved, it is political and frankly, an option for the IvankaTrump.com business to make a profit. I don’t see anything empowering about defunding Planned Parenthood, barring asylum from women refugees, rolling back safeguards for equal pay, and treating POC/LGBT and the communities that support these groups like second class citizens.

As a queer person of color and daughter of immigrant parents I am not interested in being profiled as an aspirational figure for those that support a brand and a President that slyly disparages female empowerment. Sharing my story with a brand and family that silences our same voices is futile. Thank you for the consideration.

Dimayuga’s post has now been “liked” more than 3,200 times. Oddly, as the Huffington Post points out, one of her new followers is Ivanka Trump herself.