Where Have All the Asians Gone?

You can buy into the pop culture and idolize Tina Fey and Angelina Jolie, but there must be times when you sit back and wonder, "Where Have All the Asians Gone?"

Thanks to Wesley Chan of Wong Fu Productions (the creators of "Yellow Fever") and Twitter, I recently read this article on CNN entitled "Five rising Asian-American stars to watch." Here's the link for your skimming pleasure: http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2009/10/29/five-rising-asian-american-stars-to-watch/. If you don't really feel like clicking, here's the shortlist (hopefully not in any order):

1) Far East Movement

2) David Choi

3) Brenda Song

4) Aaron Yoo

5) Wong Fu Productions

When I was in high school, I wrote an article for a faux magazine project about how there are only a handful of Asian actors for Asian-specific roles (Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Lucy Liu, etc). Not surprisingly, nearly all of the ones I named were Chinese. This is not the case presently, as I find most Asian-American actors to be Korean (Aaron Yoo above, John Cho, Ken Jeong, and Sandra Oh to name some of the more prominent ones). But I'm sure as hell not going to stand here and wonder where all the Chinese actors have run off to for the past 10 years and why Korean actors have filled that Asian niche when we have a collective issue on our hands.

The fact that this list exists proves what little influence Asians have on the American pop culture. To drop big Asian names like these is sadly merely saying, "These are the biggest guns we've got. You probably don't know them, though." The fact that I point and gleefully shout "ASIAN!" whenever I spot one on TV is definitely telling us something about how rare of an occurrence it is. (Speaking of Glee, I'm glad to find two Asians in the cast! Jenna Ushkowitz as a semi-main, secondary character and Harry Shum Jr as a tertiary one aka "that Asian guy that dances.")

Over the past couple of years I have been noticing an increase in Asians in the media. Barney will, from time to time, try to pick up an Asian girl on How I Met Your Mother, and it's no mistake that America is becoming familiarized with John Cho's face from roles both Asian (reprising George Takei's role as Sulu in the new Star Trek and portraying our generation's Cheech & Chong as the pot-loving, burger-chasing Harold of Harold and Kumar) and race-neutral (Cho is riveting as an ill-fated FBI agent on Flash Forward).  I've also started to notice the abundance in ABC Family's sidekick characters (Greek, 10 Things I Hate About You, Melissa & Joey), which I consider a huge step forward.

I wonder if it isn't about where we've gone, but where we're going. Most Asians in America haven't been here for too long. I'd guess that about 90% of the ones that I know are first or second generation. How many Asians in America can't even speak English (a majority of my family, that's for sure)? Certainly if we want roles that aren't Asian stereotypes (no disrespect to Jackie Chan) then we have to be able to play those parts. Let's think about it in reverse for a bit. How would the Caucasian community in Korea feel? How can they have better representation and better roles than playing the white-man-from-America-who-seems-really-nice-and-can-even-speak-Korean-but-ends-up-being-a-drunkard (yeah, I'm talking to you, Sad Love Story).

All I'm saying is to give it time. We're new to this "being in the American media" thing, so we have to break out somehow. With every mention of "Asian-American stars to watch," we gain a little bit more presence and recognition. Sir Isaac Newton once said (and my professor ALWAYS said), "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." We are building a path, and everyone is contributing to our future.

Representation is another story all together. We'll save Shelby Woo for another day as well.

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