The Asian-American community is demanding an apology from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, for mockingly imitating Chinese President Hu Jintao during the Jan. 19 segment of his talk show.

During his talk show, Limbaugh said, “He (Jintao) was speaking and they weren’t translating [during a speech given by Jintao at the White House earlier last week]. They normally translate every couple of words. Hu Jintao was just going ‘ching chong, ching chong cha.'” The demands for an apology are being led by California Senator Leland Yee, a Democrat, who viewed Limbaugh’s mockery of Jintao as racist and derogatory against the Chinese people.

In recent days, Yee has rallied civil rights groups in a boycott of companies like Pro Flowers, Sleep Train and Domino's Pizza that advertise on Limbaugh's national talk radio show.

The comments that he made – the mimicking of the Chinese language – harkens back to when I was a little boy growing up in San Francisco and those were hard days, rather insensitive days, Yee said in an interview. “You think you've arrived and all of a sudden get shot back to the reality that you're a second-class citizen.”

In response to the demands for an apology the next day, Limbaugh said he did a remarkable job of imitating China's president for someone who doesn't know a language spoken by more than 1 billion people.

The vociferous Limbaugh is familiar with controversy, especially when it comes to racism. In July, African-American leaders demanded an apology from him when he said during his talk show that President Obama “wouldn’t have been voted President if he weren’t black.”

Limbaugh never apologized for that, either.

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