PART 2 OUT NOW! Firstly, Laufey is half Chinese! I did in fact know but still somehow got wrong in the video- my bad! Brenda Song is also half Thai, half Hmong. secondly, had to cut a lot out of this video because I was covering so many topics but I plan on making a part two, mostly covering topics of the sexualization/desexualization of asian men and women! So stay tuned:) I will probably switch gears for a sec and finish another video I left on the back burner then the video after that will focus on colourism. I appreciate all the recommendations I’ve been getting and I hope to incorporate a good portion of them in my upcoming videos:) I’m so grateful for all the support and kind words I’ve received and I’m so excited to make this a longer term project! Also this video was mostly focused East Asian and South East Asian representation, but future videos will include more West/South/Central Asian represention ❤️ Please be kind and respectful of people’s experiences in the comment section. I have tried my best to moderate but I do not want to see any racism plz and ty
Southeast asian should be given it's own time tbh, bc when we look/act acceptable enough for the west, we're lumped in with east asians (you kinda even did it with Olivia Rodrigo tbh) but other than that we get relegated to what amy wong described (and I really disgust at the term esp for even starting the idea) "jungle asian"
Well there’s Zayn Malik. He’s known to be handsome and artistic. He doesn’t hide his Asian roots and even shows it in his music. Even use south Asian singing technique. But his asianess is never emphasize. He is mostly known to be hot… girls gush about him and don’t mention his being Asian at all but that name is clearly Asian.
So true and so ignorant. Some folks try to use a coastal emphasis, but it still doesn't register in US minds. Many in the US still only recognize yt and blk
If you want to get technical, Indians are genetically unrelated to East/Southeast Asians and they are genetically closer to Europeans Look at Nikki Haley who is full Indian but looks 100% White
I find it interesting that all the Filipinos in popular mainstream media are white-Filipino (Olivia Rodrigo, Shay Mitchell, Cassie Steele, Nicole Scherzinger, Vanessa Hudgens, Vanessa Lachey, Kelsey Merrit), or "culturally ambiguous" mixed-Filipino (Bruno Mars, Cassie Ventura, APL, Saweetie, HER). It's literally a stereotype that Filipinos are extremely talented, so I find it hard to believe Hollywood is unable to find and promote full-Filipino talent. I think it really shows that Hollywood caters to the palate of white audiences.
Lol. All celebrities are definitely far better looking than 90% of the population. Remember carrot man? He is the rare one that would make it to aesthetics of of decrimatory lens of film and tv. But even then creativity and talent will take you to popularity
Manny Jacinto blew up in popularity this summer for his role as Sith in the Acolyte. He is full Filipino but sadly, Hollywood continues to do him dirty with lack of promotion as you said. Support him!!!
@@aquaaria3489 This is not even true though. What major stars besides Liza Soberano and Anne Curtis are half white? Lol. And both use Tagalog as their first language! Virtually all the major stars in the Philippines are full Filipino. You’re assuming pale skin means Wasian when in Asia it usually means part Chinese. Most of the major Filipino stars have lighter skin but not because they are half white, it’s because they are Tsinoy. Basically all Filipinos stars are “full Filipino” because Tagalog is the language of the entertainment industry. A mixed race Filipino that isn’t fluent like Liza wouldn’t make it.
The casting for The Sun Is Also A Star was so upsetting. Two mixed race actors playing characters that are monoracial, with the antagonists being a dark skinned Black man and a fully Asian man felt so blatant and uncomfortable.
@HandmaidsTaleComingForUsAll I liked it personally and I think partly because I really related to certain things that happen, I actually cried at the end, so yeah I'd say it's good
Casting a super-handsome Wasian Henry Golding as Nick Young, an obscenely mega-wealthy full Asian man, is almost like a visual metaphor of the "Asian tax" that Asian males have to pay, compensating for their visible Asianness with money, education and social status.
Absolutely. They have to work twice as hard to get the same visibility. Not to detract from your point, I just wanted to say Henry Golding could pass as a full southeast asian. I've seen a lot of Filipino men with similar features to him. Such as Dingdong Dantes or Paolo Montalban. But obviously, he is still Wasian acting as a character that is supposed to be full asian.
I want to understand your point but maybe I don’t fully understand the Asian tax and I guess more specifically how it’s specific to Asian men? Also I think the Henry Golding example confuses me because I thought the point of the movie was that he was just hot even when his GF thought he was broke and she wanted him in spite of his money?? Idk idk I’m confused…
I’m confused by this comment because the movie was called crazy rich asians and it’s the whole theme 😅 also I think it was based on a book by an Asian author?
i’m filipina and i do claim olivia rodrigo as filipina. tbh, i haven’t seen much discourse from other filipinos that don’t claim her or say that “she isn’t filipina enough”. in fact, i am so glad that someone who is wasian herself, is so open and proud of her heritage. a lot of filipinos agree with that as well because with people like vanessa hudgens and shay mitchell- they do the opposite. they only acknowledge their filipino side when it benefits them and claim “spanish” instead when they are indeed HALF filipina. filipino’s not wanting to claim olivia rodrigo as THE ‘filipino icon’ is because of our own colourism and putting half white and half filipino celebrities, actresses, actors, singers, etc… on a pedestal. we rarely have representation of FULL filipinos and you can see that in the philippines’ industry and you can see that with the pageants as well. i think a lot of us filipinos are just sick of our wasian counterparts being put as ‘superior’ than us. with their lighter skin tone, height, and more eurocentric features being broadcasted more in the industry and seen as more beautiful. overall, i do think that olivia has done her best to show how much she loves her filipina side and is always proud of where her dad’s side of the family came from. i also think that we should have more full-filipino representation, but for now- olivia is our only filipina-pop princess here in the west and i think a lot of us are proud of her for that.
as a filipina, i also appreciate olivia being proud of her heritage. i feel too old to appreciate her music but i approve of her being proud of her heritage. in addition, i don’t understand people not liking her when there are “mestiza” beauties like liza soberano as one of THE aspirational filipina celebrity.
@@arielgonzalez9993 who she dates doesn’t represent how filipina she is. it doesn’t mean she isn’t proud of where her dad’s side of the family comes from.
@ that’s not what i’m saying. i don’t think it matters who she dates. as long as she is still connected with her roots and is proud of it. would you still care if she dates another person of different race, but still isn’t filipino? it’s like saying i’m not filipino enough because my fiancée is brown and not filipino.
I think the issue that society has when it comes to biracial people who are mixed with white is that they often get seen as the acceptable version of said race. For instance, Olivia is Filipina but she is essentially the “acceptable Asian” because she has fair skin, brown eyes, and some white features. It kind of puts them on a pedestal while those who are fully one race are left behind. It also is a different experience for biracial people than those who are fully one race. There is a very skewed version of representation in media. I don't agree though that people should be telling others if they are Asian enough or Hispanic enough, etc. I also saw that discourse with Olivia. I remember when she first came on the scene people were harsh because she wasn't as intuned with her heritage but she had openly said she was proud of it even if she didn't grow up so immersed in the culture. It seems it wasn't until recently that she started to fully dwell into her culture more. I think that is a harmful thing to do to others as it erases a part of them. There is no “right” way to be a certain race. If it is a part of you and you own it then that should be enough.
oh 100% it’s easy to notice that lighter skinned mixed people are often the ones who are most popular, zendaya is a very large example of this as well. Whenever people discuss casting for a black role, she’ll probably be the most commonly picked one as, like you said, she’s seen as the “acceptable black woman”
@@Rockwith_gyu Indeed. The drama surrounding Tom Holland Romeo and Juliette co-star being "black and ugly" really highlighted this, so many people online were saying "if they wanted a black girl why not cast Zendaya? Francesca is ugly" ugly meaning she´s too black. People called her a gorilla, for crying out loud, the racism really showed.
34:30 I don't know about Filipino-Americans, but Filipinos IN THE PHILIPPINES, have embraced Olivia Rodrigo wholeheartedly, we termed her our "pinsan" (cousin), her recent concert in Manila has proven to be the largest crowd for all her concerts on tour. Also, Bretman Rock, another Filipino, has acknowledge her as being a fellow Filipino more than Vanessa Hudgens, who has not even acknowledged her Filipino heritage (her mom is from the Philippines) and Shay Mitchell who instead said she is spanish, when her mother is also from the Philippines and a cousin of Lea Salonga.
i’m barley wasian admittedly. my mother is half filipino. HOWEVER my father was a HUGE asian fetishist and the definitely affected my self esteem growing up, not even being overly “wasian” just knowing that i was born out of something so superficial is so saddening. my poor mother allowed him to name me asia jade and now it just follows me like a shadows i feel like i can’t even claim. am i alone in this?
I think I didn't get it as bad as you, I was a teenager when I found out my white dad's dating history was mostly Asian women, so at least he wasn't so open about it that I grew up with that defining me 😭 But while my dad wasn't that outright so at least I didn't get it at home, his parents/my grandparents had a whole house full of Japanese and Chinese dolls, paintings, knickknacks, etc. My boyfriend can never forget that when he went to meet them at their house for the first time, my grandfather greeted him with, "Welcome to Shangri-La!" This while they also clearly openly disapproved of my mother and the fact that my dad actually chose to /marry/ her. To them, Asian culture was exotic and worth collecting, but they still wanted their son to marry a white woman. But we still had a close relationship with them. It's a lot to unpack and was really hard on my mom especially.
My Mother was also an Asian fetishist and because of her actions I struggled a lot with my name. It was to the point that I felt pain every time I had to write it down. I changed my name five years ago and it gave me a lot of relief. It's a really difficult thing to deal with, and people sometimes struggle to understand the feeling. My situation was different but I understand what you're going through.
literally everyone is born from the deviant sex lives and kinks of our parents lmao Even the most proper of people are freaks behind closed doors and produce children in the strangest ways, all this to say your not alone.
Hi! I’m so sorry- that seems like a really difficult experience to navigate but you’re definitely not alone!! If you’d be interested in talking a bit more about your experiences and maybe even getting involved with my next video (or even j chatting privately), you can reach me at @freakonaquiche on instagram or by email at emmakredl@gmail.com!! ❤️
The desexualization of Asian men seems more centred around the male gaze than the female gaze. White men kind of decided for white and other non-Asian women that they weren’t attracted to less overtly masculine Asian men. For ages women have loved men that are “soft masculine” or even gender bending, like rock stars and boy bands, so Hollywood thinking that women can’t cast Asian men unless they are like Kronk level masculine is just extremely weird? You see it with how women love k-pop. Male K-pop idols in many ways do NOT adhere to typical white western masculinity and women love them. But women have loved soft masculine boy bands for decades within other races. But when western women with access to the internet, and not men in charge of Hollywood studios, are directly in charge of what men they are going to swoon over, women are more likely to love men that are both not as explicitly masculine and also not white. But male executives are more likely to only cast or promote one or the other. They are less likely to exist together.
The real question is why this happened with Asian men but not other marginalized men. Black men and Latino men face plenty of discrimonation but are generally sexually desirable.
This isn't remotely true. Only by the popularization of kpop very recently has there been some shift. Asian men are some of the least chosen demographic by women across all dating apps
@cyberspace7208 honestly as an Indian man she's speaking facts. As much as I want to blame women, they are attracted to Asian men and Indian men too. The problem isn't my race. I just ugly😂😂😂 jk jk
@@cyberspace7208 that’s what I’m talking about with the popularization of K-Pop. I’m not saying the problem is over, but I’m saying I think it’s more about white men controlling their access to white women by controlling media and social morés, more than what women actually naturally wanted themselves. Now that women are waking up to what we actually want and like, I think white men are scared they will lose their “default option” status with women, especially white women. Controlling race by controlling white women’s reproduction has always been a tool of white patriarchy. Many white women have certainly participated in the issue with dating racism, participating in the victim narrative when caught, and fetishization, but I honestly don’t think we had the societal power to be the origin of it all. It also depends on what you mean by Asian too. Men from different parts of Asia and North Africa can look completely different and have different stereotypes attached.
Giving the fact of Belly felt ugly before she turned "pretty"(she got contacts and braces removed 😭) I assumed that her being a wasian played a factor in it since she says that her white blonde friend, Taylor is the one who boys chase after but there wasn't anything in show that mention or even hinted at that compared to the novel, Starfish, which explores Kiko Himura who born to a Japanese father and white narcissist mother who constantly chip away at her self worth through snide remarks about her Asian appearance and heritage. I feel like Jenny Han likes the aesthetic of wasian but not their experiences.
@emmakredl I'm not implying that monoracial Asian authors can't write about wasians and vice versa like Xixi Tian's debut This Place Is Still Beautiful explores the relationship between the Flanagan sisters born to an Irish American father and a Chinese immigrant mother. Margaret, the oldest pass for an Asian woman and more headstrong about racism while her younger sister, Annalie passes for white and wants to assimilate to fit in her majority white high school which isn't something you would find in Jenny Han's works.
tbf belly was white initially. she was changed to wasian after the success of to all the boys. i think jenny han writes about wasians because she does like the relative proximity to whiteness
i think all people of color are affected by this. i see a lot of discourse circulating online about how zendaya is constantly being casted as one of the only “black” actresses is hollywood, but she’s mixed.
Yes, this. As a Black woman, I have no issue with Zendaya or actresses like her who are half-white, half-black (Zoe Kravitz, Rashida Jones, Meghan Markle, Kat Graham, Lauren London, Halle Berry, Tia and Tamera Mowry, Taylor Russell, Tessa Thompson and the list goes onnn) but they have a completely different experience than the average Black woman in America. Being biracial is often a different experience in and of itself, and putting half-Black people in roles to represent fully Black people is disingenuous.
White people have created a rule that if you are any race that is fully non-White, your existence isn't as valid as someone with White blood and White features. People of color, as the minority, have accepted this "rule" established by the majority. It's disgusting, and I'm glad that we, as a society, are beginning to openly unpack this truth.
@@InternetGirl1093And Amandla Stenberg. I remember how confused people were that she was playing a dark skinned black girl in “The Hate U Give”. Even the cover of the book shows a darker skinned girl with type 4 hair, which both of those Amandla does not have.
Yes and she doesn't even look black. Like we all can see that. Sometimes when I am not looking hard enough I always think Zendaya is white until I recognise the actress. Like is a huge problem when it comes to black women. Two mixed-raced storms, the lead female in Lovecraft country is mixed but her sister who isn't a lead is actually black, the woman the prince in coming to America liked is a mixed race woman but her wayward sister is the black one, in the movie "Half of a yellow son" film the female lead who is supposed to be an Igbo woman from Nigeria is played by a mixed raced woman and her sister who isn't really a lead role is played by a black woman. I have been echoing this for years, they keep bringing mixed raced women to play black women in lead roles. Why did they use Zendaya as a lead in "the greatest showman" but her brother who isn't a lead is the full black one. Why isn't her brother mixed too?
@@dariuschambliss1221I think he’s busy trying to claim blackness by way of his Guyanese ancestry…it’s tragic really cause his Guyanese side has Chinese ancestry which is a beautiful culture in its own right but he’s too busy trying to be a niggaboo to embrace that Guyanese Chinese heritage/culture from his dad’s side.
i'm half-jamaican/half-ghanaian. let me tell you, it's tough to explain my mixed experience. even though i'm fully Black, i'm from 2 cultures and feel adjacent to the mixed-race kid. on my jamaican side, there's a suspicion towards africans, no whistling for women, and somber funeral ceremonies. on my ghanaian side, i visited a slave castle back home but my family grew up with maids and an open bar. funerals are a good ol' fun time. these two cultural identities often didn't mesh when i was a child, especially it was difficult to express either heritage in white neighborhood. now i'm all mixed up, but i identify firmly as an artist because that feels like a certainty.
If it helps, even as an African, if your parents come from different countries within Africa you're considered mixed. If you're from different tribes/ community within the country you're still considered mixed. So don't feel out of place for it coz those are different cultures
Same here. I'm half Nigerian and half Zambian... but I was born in South Africa everywhere I go. I feel like a foreigner he afrophobia doesn't help either
As someone who grew up in Hawaii, I think I can share a different perspective of my own wasian experience. I’m 75% south east Asian, and 25% white. Growing up in Hawaii, where Asians are actually the majority and white people are a minority, most of the people I knew, saw, and interacted with were full asian or mixed. Unless someone had blue eyes or blond hair, I pretty much assumed they had some type of Asian heritage, either fully or partial. If someone had dark hair and brown eyes, I didn’t even really consider the fact that they could be full white. The family that I grew up around and was raised with, immediate and distant family members, were all from my Asian side. I did not really see or interact with my white side at all. But growing up and living in Hawaii until I was 19, everyone I had met could tell I was Asian and also just assumed I was at least part Asian. When I left Hawaii and moved to the mainland at 19, for the first time in my life, people had assumed I was 100% white. My first roommate, a black girl, was shocked when I told her that I was actually 75% south East Asian. And multiple other people, white people and even Asian people, assumed I was just white. And I didn’t like it. But my husband is white, and he asked why I was offended by being white passing, which did make me feel bad, because I didn’t really know why it was a problem for me at first. But after thinking about it, I know why. It’s not that I am ashamed or embarrassed or don’t like that I’m white, or that I dislike white people. I feel sort of ashamed that people don’t know I’m Asian. It feels like I’m somehow hiding my Asian heritage, even though it’s not anything I’m doing. It’s literally just because I’m white passing in appearance. I don’t hate my white heritage, I just relate to and connect more with my Asian identity. So when people don’t see me as Asian, I feel like I am somehow betraying or misrepresenting that part of me.
I normally don’t comment on TH-cam videos, but I wanted to add that Henry golding’s mom is actually Dayak, the indigenous people of Malaysia. I think that’s some interesting context that gets overlooked. He is not Malay or Malaysian Chinese which are different ethnic groups.
i definitely agree that this is actually a really unique “wasian” experience as in the malaysian context, dayak people’s identity and experience are more similar to the indigenous people of america
This was a great video. As a canadien black woman myself, though I understand the broader experience of growing up in predominantly white area and the lack of reprensentation, I can't pretend to understand the asian or wasian experience. Really thankful for this video. You've put a lot of work into it and it was super insightful, interesting and educating.Thank you for this great content! Keep going!
Vanessa Hudgens wasn’t even the only wasian playing Latina in the 2000’s! There was also Navi Rawat as Theresa in the O.C. I was also going to include Michaela Conlin as Angela in Bones but apparently her character is canonically wasian and Angela Montenegro is a name she made up on her 18th birthday. My bet is she was written to be Latina in the pilot, but after casting a wasian actress they were like ok let’s be real here
Don't forget steven skyler, who was of German and Thai descent yet played a hispanic latino power rangers in the nickelodeon adaptation of power rangers samurai (which already bastardized samurai culture). Apparently, because he was mixed and didn't look white, east asian, or south asian, the casting director and show writers and producers probably just assumed he was hispanic latino and he went along with it because he was a struggling actor. (He doesn't even have a spanish last name. How did this even happen?) [Special mention goes to Lalaine, who was of filipina descent and played lizzie mcguire's mexican friend. Because she didn't look east asian or south asian and had a Spanish last name, the casting director and show writers and producers and executives instantly thought she was mexican and she thought she had to accept that or she would never have another acting role. Apparently, if you are southeast asian and don't look east asian or south asian, non-asians don't think you are asian and just slap the hispanic latine label onto you.]
Navi Rawat is Anglo-Indian we Indians don't use East Asian term "Wasian" Because no Indian uses that term Wasian... the term for half Indian and half white is Anglo-Indian and they're a normal minority group in India and abroad.... Charlie XcX and Freddie Mercurie for example were/are Anglo-Indians.
my thing about taylor hiding her ethnicity is that i could never not disclose my ethnicty because it's such a central part of how i lead my life. what if garrett didn't actually appreciate and respect her culture??? theres always subtext i look towards when dating someone that tells you whether they will tolerate or celebrate your culture and taylor decided to forego that. risky in my opinion
That moment was very uncomfortable. I get that she was trying to preserve the integrity of the experiment but I can’t get how you can have all those in depth conversations with someone without your culture coming up in several different ways and contexts unless you are carefully omitting it and if that is the case is this person getting to know your whole self. And I didn’t like Garrett’s reaction. He seemed panicked for a minute. I really thought he was going to pull a “she’s not my type” and “I’ve only dated blonds” when they came out of the pods.
I assumed that she was trying to avoid the way non-Asian men fetishize Asian women. The idea being that once they see each other, she can introduce her culture to someone who likes her for herself and not for some gross and false stereotype about Asian women.
@@Abcdefg-tf7cuWhile I get what she was trying to avoid, its murky at best. What if her first name wasn’t Taylor and was Chinease instead. Should she have changed or hid it? A lot of things basically can give away race or culture and those things are core to what Love Is Blind is suposse to foster, about bonding on core values. core values and cultural background are often intertwinned. Look at Tom and Maria on Love is Blind UK, they were not culturally gonna work out, whatever else they liked about each other. Several black contestents on love is blind admit to knowing people on the other side of the wall were also black from various context clues. Kwame considered not using his name because of its cultural context, but that’s not really making yourself neutral…its making yourself ‘assumed white’ until clues lead to otherwise and that’s not being real, that’s also arguably being deceptive. I am not saying walk into the pods and state you race, height, and waist size in the first two minutes. But if culture naturally folds into the conversation, I don’t see how that makes Love is Blind less blind if it becomes a part of the deeper level of getting to know you. Race is not just how you look, it can be about culture as well and people have cultural histories that you absolutely would want to discuss before a marraige proposal. They walk out of the pods with the intent to MARRY for goodness sake. I don’t think anything garret imagined even if she had said her mom’s name was Fong would have told him much about how she looks that was significant.
It's the same in the Latino/Hispanic community; they view us as a monolith when it's not a race. We have white, Black, Mestizo, and Asian Hispanic/Latinos, like Argentina. Uruguay and Chile are mostly white, while the Caribbean has a lot of Afro-Latinos, and Peru, Brazil, and Mexico have a lot of Asian Latinos.
Especially because our countries were founded by colonization and immigration. So there’s no “original” Latin American race, everybody came from somewhere Except indigenous people, who were already here, but they don’t consider themselves Latin American per se, but identify mostly with their ethnicity
@@anacarolinamenezes8912 And you got Cubans and Puerto Ricans plaging Mexicans in hollywood movies when in reality theres barely any Mexican representation in Hollywood.
One thing that has bothered me about some wasian representation is the concept of being mixed as “missing” or “longing” for whiteness, defining us in relationship to whiteness. I guess that’s sort of the sad wasian trope. It feels like so many wasian stories/narratives center around our relationship to whiteness and how we feel inadequate. I think a more diversity of stories will fix this. I acknowledge that this is an experience that so many so through, but it was never mine. I also think this perpetuates the online “beef” between monoracial Asians and mixed wasians, that all we do is seek validation from our white family/people and attempt to walk this earth as a white person. Overall, the answer is always more representation in general, but especially more nuanced ones.
oh uh for me as a wasian, I want to be more Asian than white. Maybe the environment around me has influenced me to think that way since the city I live in is mostly asian, yet we’re still in America. Also I don’t understand how some Americans don’t know that Indians are Asian too, like India is located in Asia too, hello?? Common sense? Think!!
This is interesting. I dated a wasian man who feels the same way you do. He wished he was more in touch with his Chinese side. He has a very white name, grow up in a white community, and only speaks English even though his Chinese grandmother only spoke cantonese (he grow up with her living in his house). His parents made the decision for him not to learn Cantonese. He is really proud of his Asian heritage and doesn't try to be white. He signed up for the chinese american board association because he felt more comfortable.
@@Play4keeks I feel like environment plays a role and influences us. I read some comments here that some wasians who live in mostly white areas wished they look more white and want to be in touch with their white side. Yeah but for me, it’s the opposite. Some Asian ppl think I’m white while some white ppl think I’m Asian. Others of any race will have different opinions or think I’m mixed. Environment definitely played a role somehow.
Thanks for this video. As a half-white, half-Japanese woman from the US, I feel like I'm basically the most 'white-adjacent' or 'acceptable to white people' form of poc you can be, so I've often felt like my perspective and experiences are unwelcome or unhelpful in discussions around racism, like I'd just be distracting from bigger issues. It's nice to see discussion of this perspective and have a space to talk about it. I definitely relate to a lot of things Ethan was saying. I grew up in a predominantly white area, and maybe I never felt like I could be accepted and belong to whiteness because of that, so for most of my life I'd always kind of felt like my whiteness was something that delegitimized me as 'not Really Asian,' and tried to compensate and distance myself from it. Being half-white, being fourth generation, the fact that I only knew bits and pieces of Japanese, the fact that I didn't know that many other Japanese people around me, all of that felt like proof I wasn't 'really' Japanese. I latched onto manga and anime early on in life, and I'd be really happy when I got super tan in the summer, because I felt like it made me less white and thus more Asian, even though Japanese people also value paleness. Being less white and associating myself with any non-whiteness was more important to me. I've dabbled in hiphop, Latin guitar, Chinese yo-yo, etc- pretty much anything I came across that wasn't 'white' in trying to more solidly establish myself to both myself and everyone around me that I was 'other.' I haven't seen To All the Boys I've Loved Before, but I can relate to the sort of insistence being described on them being Korean while actually being displaced from it. I'll pretty much always relate more easily to any characters in media who aren't white (no matter if they're also not Japanese or not even Asian), but the way mixed race representation in Hollywood is treated like a way of diluting non-whiteness to make it more palatable to a white audience is frustrating, to say the least. Ae deserve a lot more representation onscreen of poc who aren't half-white, but I always get annoyed at the suggestion that half-white people have enough representation already. I don't think the people who are starved for representation would be happy if the only representation they had was being used as a 'diluted' version either, and I resent that the centering of whiteness has made mixed people into an adversary in some people's eyes. I don't think the tension in my family between my Japanese mother and my racist white grandmother would be particularly easy for a white audience to swallow if it were depicted honestly.
Half-Japanese myself, but what a different experience I had compared to yours! My Japanese side is much much more recently arrived to the US, and I grew up in a heavily ethnically diverse town, with lots of Asians (namely Koreans and Filipinos), with lots of mixtures - wasians, bkasians, ???sians. I wouldn't idealize it, but it definitely felt much more open and yeah there was racial shit, I definitely felt in some ways white-adjacent but also very not, maybe because I had much more recent, and stronger connections to Japan. But even then, my mom wasn't stereotypically Japanese either. She was much more rebellious
As an "immigrant" hafu, I agree about lack of true representation. I spent my young childhood and part of my adulthood in Japan and they let it be KNOWN that you are not Japanese enough and I am in fact hafu😅 So, I'm quite sensitive about casting people for roles that align with their ethnicity and/or background; i.e. cast a full Korean for a full Korean love interest, not a mixed person. It's not like there aren't enough actors to choose from 🙄 Hollywood is just not letting them get their spotlight.
You really hit the nail on the head! As a full Korean American I didn't really mind the casting choice for Nick in Crazy Rich Asians, but I hope to see more fully Asian men as love interests. I also think we first need to break the idea that Asian films have to be a certain way in general. A lot of Asian American critics are really honed in on "perfect representation" or well-made rather than a film being genuine. I can't wait to see all the Asian American media in the future, with all the diversity that is within "Asian American" even if it's a bad movie. As an amateur/hobbyist writer I hope to do what I can with my characters, I can't promise the story will be any good but I at the very least hope to write them as actual people.
I think Nick Young's actor looking like a full Asian is why people weren't as upset as the other examples in Hollywood. I never knew that Henry Golding was mixed until I read about a news article on him. I thought he was an adoptee due to his last name.
I am Blasian. I would argue that we have it even worse 😂 Barely any representation in the media at all. Except for Amandla Steinberg (Rue Hunger Games) even though she plays black characters she does have Asian ancestry.
Jhene Aiko, Yoon Mirae, Naomi Campbell, and Sean Paul (I almost forgot about Naomi and Sean Paul). I can also add Yara Shahidi and Queen Naija, as Iranians and Yemenis are west asians.
Ethan is so real for shouting out Black popular culture as a means for escape or refuge from whiteness as a young mixed person growing up in white culture. I am half white and half Chicana and I too gravitated toward Black music and media as the only form of "other" I could find as a lil brown girl in Oregon. There was so much in this video that resonated with me and I thank you for putting out it.
Black people have really uncomfortable feelings about this. Because while other POC love using black culture as an escape from white assimilation and othering, those non-black people of color still bring the anti-blackness they learned from white culture with them when they interact with us. Loving our culture has never equated to loving our people.
Is that supposed to be flattering to black people? What makes you any different from white teens “rebelling” against their parents by using black culture?
36:03 Yeah, I'm never going to trust anyone trying to gatekeep "Asian-ness". It's just too large and varied to be flattened into some monoculture. For instance: I have a had fully ethnic Korean friends who are part of the South Korean adoption surge in the late 20th century who have no cultural ties to Korea, and were raised by White parents. It doesn't make them somehow less because of moments in their life they couldn't control.
it’ll only get more complicated as time goes on. My three brothers and I, plus my three cousins, are all 25% Japanese and mixed European (British, Spanish, Portuguese). I married a full Korean man, so our kids will be 1/8th Japanese, 50% Korean and 3/8ths mixed European. Depending on who my brothers and cousins choose to have kids with, we’re going to have some very mixed and interesting combinations that only get more diverse with time.
I’m a similar mix to you and my partner is Latino. People always ask if he’s Asian and I’m Latina. There’s more diversity within races than there is across them. Growing up mixed helped me realize how arbitrary race can really be.
Completely, I’m 1/4 Irish, 1/8th British, 1/8th French, 1/4 Indian, 1/8th Chinese and 1/8th Armenian. A lot of people are really shocked to hear that my grandma and her parents were mixed race, as if people haven’t been mobile and moving to different countries and falling in love since humanity began
i’m a very white-passing wasian (like the most, no one knows i’m half chinese, even other wasians can’t tell, no one believes i’m related to my chinese family) who grew up in a pretty chinese neighborhood. have always felt more connected with that side of my cultural heritage and i find myself looking for ways to bring it up not because i wanna make it my entire personality or anything, it’s just so weird having such a disconnect between your inner identity and outer appearance if that makes sense. like if i’m in a group with other asians/wasians and they don’t know then i feel like i’m being inauthentic or hiding something even though it’s literally just how my genetics turned out and i couldn’t control that lol. definitely feel like it ties into this theme of belonging you brought up. when i was in middle school i was kinda obsessed with the legend book series by marie lu and even though i don’t think i recognized this reason at the time, now that i’m older i know it was in part because one of the main characters is wasian but has blond hair and blue eyes, i.e. white features, but his wasian-ness is never in doubt. i think that meant a lot to younger me. one last thought is i am also very aware of the privilege i have simply by being white-passing that half of my family as well as many other wasians do not have, and it’s interesting to reckon with.
I’m half Mexican and half white, and I love hearing stories and perspectives of other mixed people :) I think we all at the core had similar experiences with never being enough for either side and seeing proper representation in the media. Much love!! 🩷🩷
That’s great! Important to remember though, you can be white and still be Mexican, the difficult thing with Latinos is that we are not one specific race, and most often in the USA portrayals of Mexicans are mestizo, mixed race between the colonizers and indigenous folk. It’s a whole can of worms but that’s why we’re learning it in my Latino specific politics class.
@@user9391 Most of us know. The thing is most Latinos are mixed race which is why I don’t identify as any race. People shouldn’t try to force Latinos to identify as one race. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing but most of us are aware Latino is not a race, we just don’t feel comfortable identifying as any race because once again, most of the time we’re mixed!
@@user9391thank you, that’s a difficulty I have with the discourse in the US around Latinos. They usually don’t get our racial composition and diversity
@@user9391yup! Im half white(German/british) and half Salvadoran (Spanish/portuguese/indigenous/african). I turned out white! It’s a genetic lottery because my younger brother is the most melanated, looking just like my mom. It’s not like mixing paints together, you never know what your kids will look like
same here! im also half mexican and half white but i ended up looking more morena but while i look that i grew up with my white mom mainly and have felt dissociated with my mexican side and latinos ive met are confused and dont rlly accept me bc of my white side (even my own family thinks this and ive struggled w my identity since i was a child)
as a wasian who has struggled with identity all her life, this video essay was a little healing as I don't really ever get to talk about wasianness and my complicated feelings surrounding it with anyone I know. bc I'm only half-asian, I've never really felt like I could speak when it comes to topics like race, and writing this comment I still feel oddly imposter-y and hesitant to speak even when like you say, the wasian experience is infinitely varied. anyways, ty!!
i relate so much !! i always feel kind of like an outsider when it comes to discussions about race, seeing as im not fully anything it feels like. being able to talk about being wasian for even a little bit feels like a little bit of breathing room :)
Super interesting video. I’m half white half Asian and grew up in Japan in the 90’s. I went to an American school where most of my friends were also half Asian half white. I grew up in a micro society where there were three distinct ‘races’- the full white, full Asian, and half. Half was a well understood and represented group in my community so I never really experienced the feeling of having to choose or feeling alienated. So when I moved to the states as an adult, it surprised me that the majority of people had an understanding of racial identity as one or the other, and “half” didn’t exist as its own well defined and understood and accepted identity. Now living In Hawaii, being multi racial is so common and I do feel like it’s the one place where I blend in.
This makes me think of Mark-Paul Gosselaar who played Zach Morris on Saved by The Bell. He's actually half Indonesian and they made him dye his hair blonde to erase his Asianness.
I'm Mexican and had a Chinese great grandparent somewhere and look fairly mixed I never realized growing up, but as I got older, people just kept commenting on how Chinese I looked and they were scared I would feel offended As if being asian is a nad thing😂 So I already try to say "yes I am, and of course you can ask, because I am."
My GMA is 75% Chinese but she was raised in Central America. We’ve always talked about going to China and I’ve always been someone who’s interested in the places I come from. Ik going to China isn’t gonna feel like a “welcome home” even for her even tho she looks like she would n especially for me since I’m half black but I feel like it’s nice to still see and go. the wasian experience is def something I don’t relate to but I luvEd seeing the movies/ books I luvEd and have people like me not really be connected to their Asianess but not shy away from it and it’s comforting. The world always just saw me as black so as I got older I made it a point to say what I am when asked bc I’m proud of who I am and where my family came from
This was such a fascinating discussion. I am biracial ( black mom/ white dad) and I know for myself growing up I was always used as a comparison for what biracial could look like. I distinctly remember a person commenting to me as a child that I came out “plain” compared to my friend who was also biracial black/white but who was perceived as more ambiguous or white passing which for a long time left me feeling like I didn’t deserve to take up either spaces and like I had failed some test because other people around me were picking at how I looked and asking why my dad has such beautiful eyes and why I didn’t get them etc. anyways it is really fascinating to listen your your analysis as well because as you said there is a sort of tricky area where people either say your basically white and discredit the other half of you. Thank you for making this video and sharing your thoughts as well!! I recently found your channel and immediately subscribed! -Kira
Is that why black/white biracial people who look closer to their black side make it a point to mention they’re biracial? I feel like when I see ambiguous looking biracial people they don’t claim being biracial as much, sometime they’ll even just say they’re black. Like is that an insecurity if you more closely resemble an unambiguous black person?
As a mixed person, i don't even get proximity to whiteness. No one mistakes me for being white. My last name is Ramirez. I'm a mix of native American, European, and Chinese. People assume I'm Filipino, or maybe dark skinned Japanese. I lived in Hawaii for a little, and that was the only place where people just accepted me for my appearance. I definitely didn't fit in though. I've long since given up on feeling represented in media. I only resonate with characters that are simply othered. It isn't just us that experience this. Black people end up othered in black communities too. Spicy white people get the same treatment. Realistically, we need to really drop this whiteness stuff.
Man, the fung brothers are so cooked. This is exactly why I don't feel welcome in Asian communities. I'm always told I'm not Asian enough. I don't speak the language. I didn't grow up in a completely Chinese environment. Yeah, I know. I'm literally only half, so thanks for telling me I'm not welcome here, and I'll never be good enough. Honestly, most of the shared experience that we have is simply a similar experience of racism. So I get why that isn't very profound. This is why I know I'll never get representation. If it does happen, I know it is just because the market says it wants to co-opt my image for profit. They only understand or recognize culture when they can sell it. That doesn't lead to anything except dehumanization via the market. Representation in media is a false idol.
See, I think the guy emphasizes that his family is half Korean because he is constantly reminded that he doesn't fit in with full Koreans. Like, I don't own the Chinese label because I'm not fully Chinese.
THANK YOU. "Proximity to whiteness" seems more like "having an advantage in understanding white people and their cultural ways" or "being able to code switch more easily," or even just "having white people who accept you because of your family" more than meaning that you're actually somewhat white. Cause I'm Wasian and I've never been perceived as white, either. I agree with you that I only resonate with characters that are simply othered.
I think Asian parents clinging to whiteness as a model minority is a big part of just Asian-American insecurities(those of us that are first or subsequent generationally). For instance, my mother from Vietnam was the only one of her siblings to marry someone white. And she straight up told me when I asked her why she didn’t teach me Vietnamese: “if I wanted you to be Vietnamese, I would’ve married a Vietnamese man.” I think back on that a lot because she’s made many different excuses for not really submerging us in “the culture”, but I also understand it. She has generational trauma as the youngest and only daughter out of four children, so I get why she might have subconsciously chosen to distance herself from that to follow the “American Dream”. Maybe that’s the real experience for Asian-Americans, and wasians are the stepping stone to achieving “the dream”. In the end Asian-Americans time and time again have this longing to be part of a culture, but are too separated from their heritage and whiteness to be apart of either. My cousins are closer to Vietnamese than I’ll ever be, but I know when they visit the homeland, they’re still seen as foreign. I’m also in the art scene lol, and I don’t really breach the topic of heritage in my pieces for this reason basically. Like my mother is from Vietnam, but I assume I can only claim the vague experience of being Asian-American (racism, fetishization, loss, and depression). Anyway I’m terrible at having one concise point, but I’m going to Vietnamese next summer and I don’t know the language. :,)
Self hatred is huge in the EAST/SOUTHEAST Asian community luckily West and South Asians don't have this self hating mindset to marry white and remove your own culture
Yeah and I know some people whose Asians moms were disowned for not marrying Asian men. I’m a quarter Latino but my dad is more Latino than I am and has brown skin. My mom almost got disowned until she got pregnant with me
The casting of Henry Golding felt contextual to the CRA book given that the book was centered on a rich, generational family in Singapore and had the undertones of the family benefiting from their closeness to the British colonizers. Given that Henry is Wasian in that casting makes sense given that this connection between Wasian and rich in SE Asia is still prevalent, in which many Wasians in SE Asia benefit from their proximity to whiteness and wealth. This is also my experience being in international schools in Asia and having many Wasian classmates; which I think a lot of North American audiences failed to see - how much being in close proximity to whiteness in a non-North American context is a huge privilege.
Singapore has a wide variety of social issues which the movies don't address, because the movie isn't about Singapore's social issues. I do agree something like that could be explored in visual media such as film and television, but CRA isn't it.
Nick is supposed to be Chinese, full Asian. If they want to show he's mixed, they can go the Pernarakan route which is more historically accurate. But nope, in a cast of all full Asians, only the leading man has to be half white. Just that one leading man. It's sending a message.
@@captlancTbh 'Chinese' isn't actually an ethnicity. I'd go as far as saying 'Han Chinese' is also a largely cultural marker with extreme diversity and plurality within. I don't think many people know or acknowledge this fact unfortunately - which explains how racialisation works.
Nick Young is supposed to be Chinese Singaporean. “Young” is a Chinese last name, NOT a Malaysian one. Chinese ethnic Singaporeans also make up about 80% of Singapore’s population. Henry Golding wouldn’t be accurate for the role. Arguably the actor that played his best friend who was having a wedding, Chris Pang, would have been a more accurate representation of the Nick Young character.
when you mentioned how Olivia could just identify as American instead of Filipino but it would be erasure, it reminded me of how no one knew Darren Criss was Filipino until recently
As a Laotian / Southeast Asian I didnt even know Henry was half bc I know so many people in my family that looks like him, but even so I didn’t mind bc he was literally one of the only Southeast Asians (half native Malaysian at that and not a Chinese Malaysian) casted in a sea of East Asians which is another issue the Asian community deals with ie all those East Asians voicing Southeast Asian characters in Raya and the Last Dragon movie.
as a wasian girl who grew up in a super white (also canadian!) neighborhood, i loved to all the boys so much in my early teens because it helped me realize i was allowed to "claim asianness" despite not having a strong sense of cultural identity, and simultaneously opened my eyes to the idea of representation that does not revolve around one aspect of identity (like race), but it is important context and a life experience all the same. growing up mixed race is so hard to reckon with because often our parents don't know how to teach us how to exist. white people see us as too asian to be white, and asians see us as too white to be asian. i don't look white but i haven't faced the same amount of discrimination as some of my fully asian peers. i don't look like my dad's daughter when we go out together but i'm the odd one out at the asian supermarket. i can't follow european OR asian makeup tutorials. i love my mom's chinese food, but my (white) friend's mom makes an awesome noodle stir fry too. it's such a strange and specific experience and i really hope people will talk about it more in the future. this video is absolutely amazing :)
TBH, what's extra hypocritical about Henry Golding being casted to play the lead in Crazy Rich Asians, is that Brenda Song wasn't casted for Crazy Rich Asians because she was not considered "Asian enough"
Not just Brenda song but Jamie chung as well and people (mostly asian guys and non-asian folks) mocked them for calling it out, even though the average person in Singapore looks more like Jamie chung (a non-mixed asian woman; east asian in her case) and Brenda song (a mixed asian woman; southeast asian and pan-asian in her case) than sonoya Mizuno and kina grassis (mixed asian women that are multiracial). Non-asian people didn't understand why they complained about being told they got rejected for not being chinese and pointed out how there were plenty of non-chinese asian actors and non-chinese multiracial asian actresses in leading and supporting roles and thought they were just mad and jealous that they weren't picked. Asian guys mocked them and called them jealous self-hating race traitors that are "old" (older than 24+) and past their prime trying to use outrage against the movie for clout; even though these same guys were complaining about Henry golding, remy hii, and nico Santos being in the movie (Henry and remy being biracial and nico being gay) and lusting over sonoya and kina because of how "exotic" they looked. The movie was released during the time when the popularity of the Asian pua movement was dying down but there were still plenty of asian guys looking for any reason to harass an asian gal (especially a non-mixed asian gal) - common reasons being feminism, not considered attractive or desirable by asian beauty and femininity standards, and having a non-asian male partner. [Only reason Michelle yeoh managed to escape a lot of this because she is old, therefore not considered attractive, desirable, or worth harassing by these guys.] Constance wu and Gemma chan were also getting harassed by those guys but Jon chu and the casting directors couldn't reject them from auditioning because they were of Chinese descent and it would look suspicious if they got rejected from auditioning, so that hatred got placed onto Jamie chung and Brenda song instead. [Before anyone mentions Kris aquino and tumurbaatar enkhtungalag, while they are not chinese and aren't mixed, they played background characters no one remembers - a wealthy royal old foreigner and an old lady that was one of Eleanor's friends respectively. Also, all of the female pan-asian actresses in the movie were part-chinese while ken jeong, henry goulding, nico santos, sonoya Mizuno, and kina grassis weren't chinese at all (but no one was mad about that because they were men or biracial women).] Jon chu may have tried to dismiss it and said/think it wasn't personal, but clearly, Jamie and Brenda didn't think so. When you are constantly getting attacked by the asian manosphere, asian guys, asian nlogs, asian pick-mes, anti-feminists, racists, and non-asian trolls and you are struggling to get roles, it is not hard to see why Jamie and Brenda were pissed at Jon chu, kevin Kwan, and the casting directors of crazy rich asians. Jamie didn't mean for Henry to be subjected to asian gate-keeping trolls and she apologized to him for that, but she was right about how sexist and hypocritical the crazy rich asians casting seemed to be and Brenda's story further confirmed this. No one (except the asian gals that have been harassed by the asian manosphere and asian anti-feminists) took their stories seriously but months and years later, there has been numerous stories and revelations about all of the shady stuff that happened behind the scenes of that movie and a lot of those horror stories mentioned or implied sexism - like the one where Adele lim left the project because she found out she was underpaid and they would not raise her pay or give her a promotion. Turns out Jamie's and Brenda's stories were warning signs and foreshadowed the scandals and horror stories that would come out of the crazy rich asians movie production. Also, asian gate-keeping is highly gendered because multiracial and pan-asian asian guys like Henry goulding, ryan potter, tyga, chris brown, daniel henny, sneako, elliot rodger, markiplier, Darren Criss, bruno mars, neyo, zayn Malik, dean cain, and tiger woods do not get harassed or hammered as much for this (sometimes even praised) as multiracial and pan-asian asian gals like Chloe Benet, Olivia munn, peyton Elizabeth lee, tinashe, nicki minaj, michelle khare, betty nguyen, anna akana, tata young, karruche tran, kamala harris, safiya nayigaard, jorn from kitchen and jorn, and h.e.r do and asian gals (especially non-mixed asian gals) get judged a lot more harshly for not being "asian enough" and dating/marrying out (whether in an interracial or pan-asian relationship) than asian guys (who are often excused and sometimes even praised for not being as "asian" and get praised and promoted for dating/marrying out).
I've always identified as "wasian" despite being only 1/4 Asian. My grandparents were the more stereotypical "white man marries Asian woman" and I saw it affect my father in both positive and negative ways. I think being born in the 50s as a half Japanese in America was really defining for my dad. I know for a fact that my grandparents experienced a lot of racism as an interracial couple, and my dad never spoke of it but I think he did too. I got the impression he didn't feel like he belonged in America because there was so much animosity towards the Japanese at the time (post Pearl Harbor), but he also didn't feel like he fit in when they lived in Japan because of the xenophobic culture. He passed fairly recently and I feel like I've lost a huge connection to my (barely) Asian identity in losing him. Thank you for making this video, it makes me happy to see the wasian experience discussed so broadly now. I always felt insignificant in the realm of wasians, but I will never let that repel me from accepting and loving that part of myself.
hey if a huge part of the wasian experience is the feeling of not being asian or white “enough”, it would be so unfair and hypocritical for anyone to say that your experience is less valid bc you’re not wasian “enough” !!! and also i find your fathers story to be very relatable esp about pearl harbor-coming from a military (both japanese and american navy) family. very sorry for your loss
@zoemegu Thank you. I shouldn't need it, but it is so comforting to be validated and understood. I love knowing people in the world get even a little bit of my experience♡ Just know I'm out here, hopefully understanding a little bit of yours too :)
@@bizness2000in the black community it is kind of made fun of to bring up your mixed heritage especially if you’re less than half because it’s seen as you running away from your blackness. Also I had a family member on my non Asian side who would compare my sister and Is traits and talk about how I looked regular black and she looked blasian. So I basically don’t talk about my Asian identity much to people out of shame.
The cast of the live action “ Avatar the last air bender” has 5 prominent roles played by Wasian actors. And I wasn’t trying to diminish things but the massive effort for culturally accurate casting and scandal for Sokka to just end up doing this instead seemed incredibly odd to me. For Sokka, Suki, Aang, Jet and Azula.
My theory about why Vanessa Hudgens was cast Latina is partially that Disney Channel in the 2000s was trying to market itself heavily to a Latin American audience and Latin American diaspora, think about Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Vanessa Hudgens vicariously. After Miley Cyrus left Disney it really feels like the LAUNCHED Selena Gomez, in a way no other Disney actress at the time got. 20% of Americans are Hispanic, it’s a diaspora so large it’s even bigger than whole Latin American countries populations, and then there is a massive audience in Latin America that I think Disney wanted to tap into.
The Asian female and white male combo is such a cliche that I don’t see the love as unique. I definitely hold a bias but I’m open to getting to know people and seeing the nuance.
In East Bay California it's a given, not only are my classes filled with half asian students but like two halves asian students (when two half asian people have a kid), I even have a half scottish half asian student with the reddest hair and freckled asian feautures
I used to think that way for many years until I started watching native Asian/black/white couples. I was so fearful of what was going to find. But honestly, it has completely changed my negative conception of the trope. I've never come across more authentic, genuine loving couples and their families and friends. It exists, we are just so focused on what we're shown in the West, this has completely distorted and narrowed our understanding of Asian inter racial/cultural couples. I'm glad I got out of that space, because I feel knowing these other couples has restored my faith in humanity in general. ❤
@@juliannehannes11i dated a half Chinese half Irish man...he had black hair on his head, soft brown eyes, and a big RED beard 😂😂😂😂😂 and he is from El Cerrito
before Joy Luck Club, the movie Flower Drum Song (1961) was the first major Hollywood film to have a mostly Asian American cast! one of the lead characters is played by Nancy Kwan, who is mixed Chinese and white, although in the movie she's portraying a non-mixed Chinese American. she was originally offered a role as one of the mothers in joy luck club, but turned it down reportedly because the script denounced her breakthrough movie, The World of Suzie Wong (1960). Nancy Kwan was in competition for the role of Suzie Wong, which initially went to France Nuyen, another mixed Asian actress who was well known for her role in South Pacific (1958), before she dropped out of the movie. France Nuyen would go on to play one of the mothers in Joy Luck Club. also interesting about The World of Suzie Wong, the makeup artists for the movie attempted to make Nancy Kwan appear "more Chinese" for the (non-mixed Chinese) role through makeup. i would love to hear more of your thoughts on passing in regards to people who are mixed Asian and white. while reading through the comments, i noticed that a number of mixed asians here referred to themselves as white passing. opposite to you, i grew up usually being one of the only asians i knew (i'm mixed korean/white) and i never would have thought of myself as white passing because the people around me never let me think for a moment that i was white. it wasn't until i went to college in a very asian area that my half-whiteness defined me more than my half-koreanness and it was extremely difficult to process as an 18 year old. as an aside, i majored in asian american studies with a personal focus on mixed asians in america. at the time it was an extremely niche topic (and certainly still is) but i love to see more critical thought on our experiences in the world ❤
Just finished the vid and sharing some thoughts and reactions (caveat that I am a non-mixed brown Filipino who regularly experiencing colorism growing up + I generally think the topic of media representation takes up too much space in Asian American discourse) 1) I saw you commented there will be a part two focused on sexualization/desexualization and I don’t know how much of a focus there will be on mixed Asian people but it would be, if possible, to hear from mixed Asian people who are not mixed with white. 2) I appreciated the facts and history you presented early on and was surprised to see that of the mixed race Asian people in the US only about a third are mixed with white, considering the outsized influence “wasian-ness” has on Asian discourse. The fact that a majority of mixed Asian discourse - including and maybe even esp convos on representation - focus on Asian and white mixed Asian people is harmful (in many ways) when so many mixed Asian people are mixed with other races (Latino and Pacific Islander are super common the west coast/Hawai’i). 3) Colorism, featurism, texturism is also prevalent among Asian communities and that, when mentioning why Filipinos may not want Olivia seen as their “Filipina icon” (although I’m surprised to hear this as I see Filipinos in the US and PH rly support her), that point cannot be overstated. I don’t (and don’t expect this from Olivia) see wasian Filipinos who are perceived as white or Spanish or whatever as someone I can relate to when I am unambiguously brown and experience racism outside of my community and colorism within. 4) Both the US and PH focus on wasian and/or light skinned Filipinas exclusively (media, airplane hostesses, beauty pageants, etc). In the Philippines long history of beauty pageants we JUST had our first Blasian (Chelsea Manalo) Miss Philippines and have had so many wasian ones, which feels like an indictment of what we see as “beautiful” and “marketable.” 5) Because of the aforementioned, the towards wasian representation from Asian people are a whole lot more than “you need to prove it.” 5) Perhaps this will be in pt 2, but Ethan’s clip at the end reminds we cannot separate the exploitative labor and military and tourist policies from white and Asian couples in North America. There is often a large economic and capital gap (and even age gap) between many middle aged couples right now. Even today there are still a lot of white ppl, typically men, who search for a much younger and poorer wife in the global south.
Hello! Thank you for your thoughtful comments :) the next video will honestly be focusing mostly on white/asian mixed people again because I’ll be talking about wasianness, the history of white/asian interracial relationships and orientalism… but! I will be discussing your fifth point in depth for sure! And! I’m already planning my part 3 on colourism and I will be taking your points into account in my writing process when the time comes ❤️ will also be discussing mixes other than white/asian in that one!!
From the perspective of a black person, I understand why people in the Asian community would want someone of mixed race to “prove” their Asianness. It sounds silly, but usually biracial people (black+white or another race) benefit from the way they look (as you stated) and use it to choose when they want to be black and when they don’t. I think people are being protective over the community.
@00:45 I semi-disagree that this doesn't lead to more discussion about her identity. He DID state he was bothered that she wouldn't reveal her race and he claimed that this made him feel that she was trying to hiding thing. Ironically, it did help to reveal his covert racism, as he tried to flip things and claim her hiding her race made him uncomfortable, not because he was racist and paranoid that she might be another race outside of Yt, but because it made him feel she was being closed off and dishonest. It annoyed me that the final episode where they get together and talk never brought his concern about her race and admission that he had only dated ppl of his own race.
I think it's interesting people of "pure race" criticize mixed races for being represented in media, yet culturally do not open up their spaces for these mixed individuals. Mixed people are never "enough" of any of their ethnicities to fully blend in or be accepted for being so. I appreciate mixed representation for that reason. Makes me feel less alien. But I do also believe fully blooded Asians need SO MUCH MORE representation in media. They're always on a backburner. But also, to the non-filipinos criticism of wanting more "fully blooded filipinos"... really think about that statement lol. What do you know of filipinos if you aren't one? Filipinos are probably the most ethnically and racially diverse Asians out there. To say you want a "fully blooded Filipino" wtf are you talking about? 😂 Edit: this is not in relation to the video but rather the comment section.
I’m also waisan (half white/ half Japanese) and remember hearing that To All The Boys I Loved was getting a movie and was so excited. But then I saw the trailer and was confused by why Lara was played by a full southeast Asian actress instead of a waisian person. Watching this video and hearing how the author really only saw her as more of a cultural bridge metaphor than a person really explains a lot. I can kinda relate with the absence of an Asian mother though as my mom would often have to fly to Japan for months to tack care of her family, so it would just be me and my dad. He never tried to cook Japanese food for me or try to get me to invest more in my culture since I already grew up going to a Japanese school program where I lived, had lots of Japanese media access, had lots of waisian and Japanese friends, and generally lived in an area with a high Japanese population. So I can see why the portrayal of the white dad in the film trying to get his daughters to connect more with their Asian background comes off as a stereotype. Also did you know Tim from Brainpop is waisan? It’s so random but kinda funny lol
@ I’m not offended but just don’t understand why they hired a Vietnamese actress to play a character whose mixed race half-Korean identity plays a central role to the story. Growing up as a Korean American is very different from Vietnamese American. I heard that the actress who played Lara grew up in a cultural mixed home and can relate to her character’s experience, but it’s still different because she didn’t grow up with the Korean-American experience. To assume that all Asian/Waisan Americans have the same cultural experiences is over generalizing and racist. But unfortunately this is how Hollywood sees them when casting. I feel like casting Lana, who’s of Vietnamese origin, to play as a half Korean character falls into the stereotype of western media always having Asian characters be played by ethnically wrong Asian actors. In Memoirs of a Geisha, they hire Chinese actors to play Japanese characters, hell Lana herself has even played explicitly Japanese characters. This pattern of miscasting is harmful because it perpetuates this idea that Asians are interchangeable and all the same, when in reality, it’s not. I actually wanna see more southeast Asian representation and am TIRED of seeing white or white-passing waisans always getting casted. But casting SE Asian actors to play as ethnically wrong Asian characters just feels wrong and perpetuates Hollywood’s racist view on seeing all Asians as the same. Instead, we should push for them to make more movies/shows with southeast Asian people, culture, lives as the main focus! Instead of seeing Lana star in a movie about the Korean-American experience, I wanna see her be in a movie about a teenage Vietnamese American girl’s experience! I wanna see underrepresented actors actually get to represent their race and culture on screen, instead of having to represent someone else’s.
@@さくら-l8tidk, I'm Malaysian, born and raised, and whenever a korean or vietnamese or whatever type of asian speak about their experiences, I still relate to them. So it's not that "VERY different" to me. Also, that's a lot of words, maybe you could make your own video, I'd be the 1st to watch.
@@さくら-l8tyeah I think they just saw she played Lara Jean the best than other people who auditioned that’s just my opinion but I agree. Also Lara Jean is supposed to look fully Asian out of her sisters
I really identified with what Ethan said. I’m not half, my parents are both Asian however I grew up in 5 different countries and identify with different aspects of each culture that formed me during significant parts of my development. That is to say, as a 4th culture kid, I also looked to art, music, etc. especially in various counter cultures to shape my personality identity and sense of self. I’d never linked my identification through my taste in art, to my mixed cultural identity before, and love that Ethan has me thinking on it now.
I’m black, and it’s nice to see that other races are dealing with the same thing, and also surprising. Some of the wasian actors named, I didn’t even realize were half white. It made me realize that when you don’t have representation of what Asians actually look like, it’s easy to think the media is correct. Just like how a lot of white people don’t understand that biracial actresses keep being promoted as fully black characters
Wasians often dive into white American culture so easily and so much it’s new to hear of any issues after doing so or being around it. Even fully Asian children raise by adopted parents I see it. All the same I’m learning of some new avenues of identity and discomforts.
Honestly I felt that Jenny Han self-insert herself into Lara Jean’s character, because the three sisters canonically(in the book) were the oldest sister looking ‘mixed’, Kitty looking the ‘whitest’, and Lara looking the most ‘Asian’ tbh
Great video! Beef between Asians is always sad. The way people feel the needs to define themselves as percentages, or provide proof points as to why they deserve to be seen as Asian. I am second gen, so I've experienced the struggles of "Not being Asian enough" through not speaking the language, or knowing certain history or cuisine or musicians or whatever. I don't understand how other Asians who have experienced that struggle feel like they can pass judgement on "Asianness" on other people.
You bring up a pertinent point as a full Asian myself. While mixed have different challenges the third culture one is still similar. As a second gen that is really Asian (put me in East Asia and I’ll blend in) I get treated as one of them when I travel. That is almost unheard of. The difference is that I have the mannerisms, the language, culture, music etc. so a lot of the general talking points and nostalgia I will understand despite not growing up in Asia. While I have western influence I made a conscious decision to be very in tune with Asia starting young. Every other Asian could’ve made the same decision. I just code switch when needed. That’s very different from the typical diaspora who were known for rejecting their Asian side and would bully the internationals. There’s a lingering resentment in the motherland for that. That’s why other Asians pass judgement. They don’t know if you’re just unfortunate or that you actively sought proximity to whiteness. To add, in East Asian culture we are a big fan of actions speak louder than words. 10x that expression in Asia. So the judgement comes from top down. You want to be proud to be a Chinese or whatever else? Learn the language or it’s not very convincing. It’s harsh but it’s true and I had to relearn and natives were only supportive. Even foreigners can’t say they love a culture without learning its language first. Respect goes up once they do. Perhaps this gives you a different angle of understanding
I am half chinese and half white (italian). As a result, I get asked if I'm filipina, latina, mexican, spanish, even indian once. I am what you would call ambiguously asian and people still get confused by the way I look, especially because of my olive skin and bigger eyes. Never have people actually asked me what my race is, they always just assume, which is horribly frustrating, especially since I was raised Chinese, have a Chinese name, and speak Chinese. Asian people think I look more white than chinese and i have been ostracized as a result, and for white people its the opposite (they think i look more asian, "latina", etc.) Being wasian is like existing in a weird in between space that no one really except you or other wasian people really understand. Thank you for making this video, Emma, its so nice to see someone like me really talking about the way we feel!
i'm so glad you called our attention to how power dynamics operate when it comes to publishing and casting, which often forces asian authors (and other creators of color) to ensure that white people are represented in ways that keep white audiences interested (ie as the main love interest, as the only surviving parent, as the best friend, etc.). we can be so hard on poc for these compromises many have to make in order to just get their work out there yet little attention is given to those who are putting the pressure on them to do so
Hello, this is my first video from you, and I would have to say from this video you have gained a subscriber. Also, this topic is actually very touching to me because, I would like to do this similar format, but for the Blasian experience in America.
Some of these comments are actually crazy, I'm sorry you have to read them. People sometimes forget they're saying this stuff to a real human being. I'm a black woman and I learned so much from this, looking forward to more of your videos❤
this video really struck a chord with me. i’m white, but i’m half turkish and half american. having an english first name and no accent helps me pass off as simply american, while my dad would describe himself as “white by definition, but not white enough to be treated like one.” i barely spoke turkish growing up, and i only visited my family in turkey once when i was in preschool. i don’t feel “turkish enough” to be able to call myself middle eastern. but at the same time, i don’t feel like i fit in with my white peers either. i know that out of all my friends, i’m the only one with an immigrant parent. my friends get concerned about my dad getting deported, which is sweet, but he’s been a citizen for over a decade. the way my peers talk about conflicts in the middle east makes me sick. i know that if i had been from other middle eastern countries, and lived there, then they would not see me as a proper person. and even though my first name is english, i have spent so much time teaching people how to pronounce the “ç” and “ü” in my last name. it’s a difficult identity to puzzle out, but i’m very excited for the day i can feel at peace with myself.
As a 3rd generation Asian American I fully agree that there is still a disconnect with my Asian cultures being in the US. I speak neither languages of my cultures and I am deemed as racially ambiguous very often. This discourse means a lot to me thank you for this video!!
My kids are Blasian. I found this video super interesting! We are in Tokyo so they see themselves as Japanese although they are proud of their heritage. Whats interesting is they have afro hair 🪮 and beautiful dark skin and it frustrates others (ironically non Japanese) who are expecting to see a predefined version of what they think mixed is (much lighter, silky hair). Also, an Asian friend of mine was crying because her boyfriend (blonde Viking type) told her he was chill if they had a girl but he really, really didnt want a son that loooked Asian 😮!?!!! So messed up (playing into the negative stereotypes of Asian men 😔)
The "prove your asian-ness" argument feels so gross to me. Personally, im full mexican n one of my childhood idols as a chicana was selena gomez, who is half white. I didnt relate much to her experience as a chicana bc she was predominantly raised by her white mother while i was raised by mexican immigrant parents, but that didnt make me view her as not being mexican or chicana enough. I looked up to her bc even if we had different experiences we still shared being chicanas n it was inspiring seeing a young talented chicana succeeding. Its been really cool seeing her further embrace her latina roots in the last couple years (very excited to watch her in emilia perez) but that wasnt necessary for me to consider her as being mexican/chicana/latina enough.
thats lovely for you, I wish more people were like you. that said this is definitely a phenomenon that affects mexicans and -particularly Mexican americans quite often. that we have terms like nopales and no sabo kids is indicative that the "not ___ enough" issue is still big for us. even with my parents having been born in jalisco im still reminded im not latina enough by weird gatekeepers all the time.
full "mexican" doesnt exist, mexican is a national identity, u can be black mexican, white mexican, metiza (mixed white n native), asian mexican, native/indio mexican etc; dont want to devalue what u said bc of course, the experience of a americanized mexican american vs a mexican american whos parents are immigrants is going to be v different like ur example, however this is a v limited mindset that doesnt account for actual racism built into mexican n many latin american societies, where black n native latinos suffer, there is no one "mexican" that is full or not, the idea of "mexican" is built on the image created by the state that a mexican looks one way either a white mexican or metizo, theres no room for other mexicans in this mindset
Shoutout to the wasians in here. I'm🇵🇭🇺🇸. I grew up in USA and Philippines so I have thought a lot about this topic. The feeling of not being entirely a part of one community. There's moments where I feel white and other moments where I feel Filipino. Then there's also the distinct Asian American culture that has its own experiences. Thanks for creating a video on this topic. I can relate to many of the comments here.
Interesting, in Pretty Little Liars, Troian Bellisario, who plays Spencer, is also a quarter black, but it’s pretty hard to tell, she just looks pretty Italian, so they could have actually had two mixed race characters on the show if they wanted. But they chose not to. I think Spencer in the books may have been pretty explicitly a WASP, but I’m not totally sure. I think they make her mother Italian or something similar in the show so she looks like Troian.
As a wasian myself, it disheartens me to see how the youth in this generation seem to put so much emphasis in seeing someone who looks like them matter more than the character they play. Actors should be ambiguous in the sense that they can portray a wide array of characters- I don’t understand this demand to see the actors as physical reflections of the audience members themselves. I think a truly compelling story doesn’t need to have just a face that people can make up their own biased assertions about- whether an actor can portray the character in a heartfelt way seems more important to see in the world.
Loved seeing a video about Wasians as a Wasian in the US. I always felt othered growing up by both Koreans (My Dad is an immigrant) and white people (as I grew up in a small, religious, racist town). I have experienced such dysphoria around my looks because my dad is the asian, rather than my mom, and I look more white than anything but always wanted to look more asian than I did. I struggled a lot with being a "white looking Korean" and never knew any other Wasians growing up; there also wasn't a ton of representation in the media. Even now I never see Wasians that look like me or are even half Korean! It's also always interesting that even though I don't look very Korean, I have been heavily sexualized by people and praised for my "exotic" features. Thank you for covering this topic!
i’m wasian with asian dad too !! so glad to find another person like me :) i also used to wish for both extremes of like can i please just either look like my mom or my dad. it just seemed easier :/ but now i see the value (most of the time) in looking uniquely the way i do. nobody else will ever look like me again !!!
@@kimcheesonjoo also I guess your dad moved/immigrated to where ur mom is from? Thats the same case with a guy I used to attend school with. I used to live in a town like urs and my high school had 3 Asians. All boys. 2/3 were mixed
As half Chinese and Australian, I really appreciated this video. I get so excited when seeing a Wasian (particularly half east asian) on screen or a wasian celebrity because it really feels like representation. Whenever I see a wasian celebrity, I make sure to follow their socials. I am proud to be Chinese but Chinese representation just does not feel the same. Of course Asian representation in Western film needs a lot of work but I do feel Wasian representation is also severely lacking since I am noticing more and more Wasians around me. I am sure all Wasians have felt 'the not belonging to either side' growing up. Community is so important and there was a Chinese and Asian community but I did not exactly fit there. I always wished for a Wasian community and to see people like me in media more. It really is amazing to see content that mentions and exposes that to a large audience.
casting lana condor is definitely related to her monoracialness but it may also be related to her being an adoptee. as an adoptee myself, i often felt my proximity to whiteness gave me a unique relationship to mixed asians in my life that i didnt have with full asians. i mean, all the talk about feeling too white to be asian and too asian to be white, having a racist parent, or having some kind of racial dysmorphia is very very common in adoptees just as it is in mixed asians. ofc, most ppl watching the film wouldnt know that or care to look it up. but considering the sequel series xokitty does include an adoptees story (the teacher) it wouldnt surprise me that jenny han did consider it maybe when she wrote TATB. and lana herself got into some controversy when she talked about all these criticisms and mentioned her own upbringing, the typical white savior narrative that a lot of asian adoptees in our communities criticize and infight about. and im sure the white execs and audiences and critics were relieved about it or something. in some ways, to me, lana fit right into this family with no other asian representation besides her sister. im sure her monoracialness didnt even phase her either, the problem is the audience doesnt pick up on these things i guess.
This is very interesting, because I'm Wasian and I"ve always related to adoptees for similar reasons! I definitely thought that must have been why they cast her to play that character
I’m watching this as someone who is mostly white but marrying a Chinese American man. I am actually learning mandarin because we want to pass it down to our kids. I love my fiancés culture and heritage and I would be devastated if our children tried to push away their heritage. Being white and native myself however, I definitely can relate to feeling torn and not “____” enough.
It's really interesting because in Japan you also do have a similar phenomenon too with people who are half Japanese. The colorism is still portrayed here with people who are more of a pale complexion being seen as desirable, but at the same time I've seen more coverage with people who are half black and half Japanese such as Naomi Osaka or with tv hosts like Anthony. The representation the past five or six years has been getting better with people who are half, even in legacy media, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done with the colorism aspect of it.
i would love to hear you talk about andi mack at some point. it was a disney show centered around a chinese american family with a wasian lead character. it also shows 3 generations of the women in the family with the grandmother being chinese and her daughter and granddaughter. them being asian/wasian doesn't directly affect the plot because they originally did colorblind casting but they definitely wrote their culture into the scripts and changed some aspects when they cast the leads they did. it's a great show overall and definitely very un-disney feeling especially for the time it came out and i would honestly just love more people to see it😭
Thank you for this video! I am half-Japanese American and have been exploring my mixed race identity for 37 years. I felt incredibly seen by Maya Erskine's character in PEN15, perhaps because we are the same age and both grew up in predominantly White spaces in California. The episode that she directed, "Yuki," starring her real-life mother, is one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. Back in 2015, I was horrified when I found out that Emma Stone was playing a quarter Chinese character in Aloha. It seemed like too late in the game to have a White actor in yellowface in a major Hollywood film, but watching your video reminded me just how far we have to go, even in 2024. Thanks Emma!
I related a lot to what Ethan was saying at the end! As a Chinese Wasian who also doesn't speak the language (Cantonese), I found it hard to relate to other Chinese Americans as well as other White Americans. While young, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by many other Wasians who were in a similar boat as me (I actually had two friends who were both Chinese/White wasian with Asian dads), but as I grew up I grew out of those friendships for reasons unrelated to Wasianness. I ended up finding belonging in spaces other than Chinese and White spaces like how Ethan was talking about art and music. Nowadays, most of my friends are Mexican. While I obviously did not go and seek out Mexican people to be friends with (LOL it just kinda happened), I think I ended up feeling like I didn't have to TRY to fit in with them. When I'm in predominantly White, Asian, or even Wasian spaces, I end up feeling like I'm not White/Asian/Wasian enough. When I'm with my friends now, I know that there's no expectation of me to be a certain way. My friends know I'm not Mexican and I know I'm not Mexican, so it's quite freeing to just be myself without feeling like I have to be MORE than what I am. Not sure if anyone else can relate.
Yes! I focused on American colonization here because I’m specifically touching on American media, but Spain’s occupation of the Philippines is definitely very relevant to the discussion
@@emmachangkredlI think you made the right choice. I am an historian and anthropologist who specializes in the Philippines and it’s entirely arguable (in fact I would myself) that the US had a much more profound effect on the Philippines than Spain did. Spain never contributed to a “Wasian” demographic (Spanish surnames in PH come from a law implemented in 1849 for census purposes), Filipinos never spoke Spanish in significant numbers, and Spain did not really leave a particularly large cultural mark or societal mark beyond Christianity and some music, food, etc. A large area of research in Filipino Psychology is the dissecting of this exact topic. The US on the other hand created the education system, the political system, was instrumental in suppressing women’s rights, and created the environment that led to mass migration. So yes, despite the time being shorter I think you were 100% right to focus on the Americans.
The crazy thing about Kristen Kreuk's portrayal of Lana Lang in _Smallville_ is that they actually *did* have the perfect opportunity to make the character Wasian after the fact. And it could've been in a way that would have acknowledged the actress's heritage _and_ neatly ammend their initial refusal to have Clark's love interest be a POC. Lana Lang is traditionally white in DC Comics (with fiery red hair to contrast Lois Lane's dark brunette hair). This adaptation of Lana is introduced as a brunette girl who is ostensibly the child of 2 (deceased) white patents, Lewis and Laura Lang. However, many seasons later, Lana is revealed to *not* be the biological child of Lewis. She learns that her mother had had an affair and that biological father was a man named Henry Small. Unfortunately, despite having a brilliant opportunity baked into the story where they could make it canon that Lana was actually half-Asian like her actress (and, I guess, had simply been unknowingly white-passing this entire time) and walk back the show's initial decision to simply ignore the ethnicity of whom they'd cast ... Henry Small is *also* a white man 🤦🏿♂️ His family were the founders for whom the town of Smallville was named, so maybe that's what informed their decision to make him white (I suppose a small town in rural Kansas is unlikely to have been founded by Asian Americans? And of course, Small isn't an Asian surname.) But it's a pity that they wasted that chance. Especially since Lana learning that she is descended from the town's founders doesn't really affect her characterisation in any real way. It's more about the fact that her mom cheated and her dad wasn't her birth father.
I've been waiting years for this conversation 😭❤️ it's extra confusing for me when I look very racially ambiguous- I clearly don't look white, but also don't really look Asian either (I'm half German half Chinese). When someone asks what my heritage is and I tell them, they act even more confused so the imposter syndrome is very real to me about my own identity. My surname is also not a common german surname so people have no idea what my family origin is until they ask (unless they are also German and know right away). Even growing up, people would assume I was Australian Aboriginal, Latina or south sea Islander, or even some obscure places they'd never heard of before they'd finally realise I'm half Asian goddamn. People project anything they want onto you when you look so ambiguous, so it makes me also feel distant from my fellow Wasians
I'm monoracial Asian, and having grown up in Asia, I have essentially the opposite experience of Wasians. By the time I moved abroad, I already had a cultural identity. I didn't worry if I'd be perceived as "less Asian", because I was Asian regardless of what I did. I stick out like a sore thumb; it's clear that I'm not a native despite being a citizen (side note: I found it interesting that being "too Asian" was something I could be bullied for.. by other Asians). I feel this way towards mixed Asians too, regardless if they're Wasian or Blasian or another mix. You aren't one thing or the other, you're both. It always made a lot of sense to me that people can incorporate different cultures into their identity. I do think it's important to have monoracial Asians in American mainstream media. However, it's important to not blame Wasians and mixed Asians in general for this problem; there are for sure some bad actors in any group, but the majority of mixed Asians are just trying to live their lives. Pushing for more nuanced and diversified representations of Asians, and promoting cultural exports from Asia could help imo.
i was initially scared to watch this video but i’m glad i did. i tend to get really anxious when folks speak on my (or their common) experience but this made me feel very seen. specifically in my case as a japanese wasian, the JA community at large is very multiracial/multiethnic and is projected to only be more so. i’ve been finally getting more involved in the JA community and that has been incredibly rewarding. we asian americans and mixed americans are not a limbo state. highly recommend to everyone to seek out and build community with your people if you haven’t already ❤
The actor from Saved by the Bell Mark Paul gosseler, who played Zack Morris made his career from White passing. His father's, a white American man and mother is Indonesian and he never acknowledged his Asian heritage back in the day , It's like being mixed with Asian was a dirty Hollywood secret. He even was told to dye his hair blonde to look more like a white boy. He is a natural brunette.
As a wasian, I've noticed there's a factor to social identity that is based on just how you look. My sister is fully Japanese and I am half but she has received racial comments and attitudes all her life, while no one ever suspects that I'm asian unless I tell them because I don't have any of the obvious facial features. This has led to my introductory phrase being that I'm half Japanese, but there are times I feel like an imposter because I wasn't born in Japan, don't know the language, and my mom had already been somewhat Americanized by the time I was raised. However, I don't feel like I'm white either, despite my family's jokes. I don't see myself in American TV shows and movies and there was only one time that I saw someone who had a similar face to mine (Angela Aki).
On the topic of casting Henry Golding as a the male romantic lead, I think there is also something to be said about Asians idolising the looks of Waysians in Asia. For example, you see the cast of the first season of Asia's Next Top Model are mostly Waysians that look white instead of full Asians. In Asia you'll see a lot of commercials featuring Asians with white features instead of full Asians because that is considered beautiful in Asia. All this to say on the topic of Henry Golding - unpopular opinion but I think his looks are not only palatable for the white audience but also the Asian audience despite the backlash
That’s only ever in Southeast Asian countries’ media. In countries like South Korea or China, the representation is 99.99% full Korean or 99.99% full Chinese. It’s very seldomly you see a half white-half Asian actor/actress there.
As a white person who's father is a unspecified white American and whose mother is a white Eastern European immigrant I really identify with the biracial experience, especially since I am always connected to whiteness, but as an ethnic white person I didn't feel connected to it. I recognize the white privilege I get from being white, and understand my identify as a white person in the greater global history, but the shared identity of American whiteness feels disconnected from me. I didn't grow up eating white people taco night and casseroles, I grew up eating fermented cabbage and and pigs feet in gelatin. I was teased at school for bringing ethnic food for lunch. Told it was smelly and gross. And when men found out I was Polish they always treated it like something exotic, and often listed all the Polish women they had dated in the past line I am the latest in a collection. I am Polish to Americans. But to Poles I am American. My Polish has a strong accent, and though I can read and write I am not knowledgeable of current slang. I am too Polish for America and too American for Poland. So despite being white, and having white privilege, I also connect strongly with the Wasian experience.
Not just wasian experience, definitely a lot of half white mixed children. I am blasian, and I identify with the Asian part of the mix like in this video, but the half black part is a WHOLE can of worms that would need its own video.
because a lot of east and SE asian men are extremely sexist and the probability of an asian men getting with a foreign, read western, woman is smaller than an east or SE asian woman getting with a foreign man.
this was an amazing video and so thought provoking! as a wasian myself, you brought up so many things i have been feeling but didn’t have the words to describe. that part about how most wasian representation creates characters that have been so raised in white culture they can basically get away with writing them as White with a Little bit of something making them different was so interesting and made me realize why those characters often feel unrelatable. i see why it was criticized the way that the characters in to all the boys were written, but if anything i can relate to that too. that latching onto any asian parts of you you have, almost being Overtly loud abt it in an effort to just feel Seen as what you Know you are but haven’t been able to experience culturally. and then going to the asian country you’re from and still feeling like a tourist. i think the one time ive really seen myself and the wasian experience represented was with maya in pen15. i watched it a while ago, so i can’t recall specifics, but i remember crying and feeling so seen. also, just the fact she is raised mostly by her japanese mother who the actress’ own mom played. overall!!! amazing video!!! so grateful this popped up on my feed!
22:54 what you describe about going to China is part of what I am experiencing coming to Africa as an AfroCaribbean. Thank you for the synthesis of words. 😊
PART 2 OUT NOW!
Firstly, Laufey is half Chinese! I did in fact know but still somehow got wrong in the video- my bad! Brenda Song is also half Thai, half Hmong. secondly, had to cut a lot out of this video because I was covering so many topics but I plan on making a part two, mostly covering topics of the sexualization/desexualization of asian men and women! So stay tuned:)
I will probably switch gears for a sec and finish another video I left on the back burner then the video after that will focus on colourism. I appreciate all the recommendations I’ve been getting and I hope to incorporate a good portion of them in my upcoming videos:) I’m so grateful for all the support and kind words I’ve received and I’m so excited to make this a longer term project!
Also this video was mostly focused East Asian and South East Asian representation, but future videos will include more West/South/Central Asian represention ❤️
Please be kind and respectful of people’s experiences in the comment section. I have tried my best to moderate but I do not want to see any racism plz and ty
Can't wait!
I'm so looking forward to that!
Can't wait ^^
As a darker Southeast Asian (SEA) please be kind...
Southeast asian should be given it's own time tbh, bc when we look/act acceptable enough for the west, we're lumped in with east asians (you kinda even did it with Olivia Rodrigo tbh) but other than that we get relegated to what amy wong described (and I really disgust at the term esp for even starting the idea) "jungle asian"
Also nobody talks about half Indian and half white wasians, because no one in the US thinks Indians are Asian
Yes I agree! Planning on diving deeper into South Asian representation in the next part of this series 🫰
Ironically, Indians are the "Asians" in the UK, and everyone else precise "Southeast Asians", "East Asians".
Well there’s Zayn Malik. He’s known to be handsome and artistic. He doesn’t hide his Asian roots and even shows it in his music. Even use south Asian singing technique. But his asianess is never emphasize. He is mostly known to be hot… girls gush about him and don’t mention his being Asian at all but that name is clearly Asian.
So true and so ignorant. Some folks try to use a coastal emphasis, but it still doesn't register in US minds. Many in the US still only recognize yt and blk
If you want to get technical, Indians are genetically unrelated to East/Southeast Asians and they are genetically closer to Europeans
Look at Nikki Haley who is full Indian but looks 100% White
I find it interesting that all the Filipinos in popular mainstream media are white-Filipino (Olivia Rodrigo, Shay Mitchell, Cassie Steele, Nicole Scherzinger, Vanessa Hudgens, Vanessa Lachey, Kelsey Merrit), or "culturally ambiguous" mixed-Filipino (Bruno Mars, Cassie Ventura, APL, Saweetie, HER). It's literally a stereotype that Filipinos are extremely talented, so I find it hard to believe Hollywood is unable to find and promote full-Filipino talent. I think it really shows that Hollywood caters to the palate of white audiences.
Wait Cassie has Filipino roots? Too bad she didn´t inherit Filipino vocals lol
Lol. All celebrities are definitely far better looking than 90% of the population. Remember carrot man? He is the rare one that would make it to aesthetics of of decrimatory lens of film and tv. But even then creativity and talent will take you to popularity
Manny Jacinto blew up in popularity this summer for his role as Sith in the Acolyte. He is full Filipino but sadly, Hollywood continues to do him dirty with lack of promotion as you said. Support him!!!
@@aquaaria3489 This is not even true though. What major stars besides Liza Soberano and Anne Curtis are half white? Lol. And both use Tagalog as their first language!
Virtually all the major stars in the Philippines are full Filipino. You’re assuming pale skin means Wasian when in Asia it usually means part Chinese. Most of the major Filipino stars have lighter skin but not because they are half white, it’s because they are Tsinoy.
Basically all Filipinos stars are “full Filipino” because Tagalog is the language of the entertainment industry. A mixed race Filipino that isn’t fluent like Liza wouldn’t make it.
@@nanadecarvalho7840Cassie is a great singer tho
The casting for The Sun Is Also A Star was so upsetting. Two mixed race actors playing characters that are monoracial, with the antagonists being a dark skinned Black man and a fully Asian man felt so blatant and uncomfortable.
this 100%
Woah fr, I never saw the movie, just read the book😢
@@wellbuttermybiscuits7Is the book good?
@HandmaidsTaleComingForUsAll I liked it personally and I think partly because I really related to certain things that happen, I actually cried at the end, so yeah I'd say it's good
Heavy on this one!!!! I wished that they would remake movie because the book is so good.
Casting a super-handsome Wasian Henry Golding as Nick Young, an obscenely mega-wealthy full Asian man, is almost like a visual metaphor of the "Asian tax" that Asian males have to pay, compensating for their visible Asianness with money, education and social status.
I thought he was full asian.
Absolutely. They have to work twice as hard to get the same visibility. Not to detract from your point, I just wanted to say Henry Golding could pass as a full southeast asian. I've seen a lot of Filipino men with similar features to him. Such as Dingdong Dantes or Paolo Montalban.
But obviously, he is still Wasian acting as a character that is supposed to be full asian.
I want to understand your point but maybe I don’t fully understand the Asian tax and I guess more specifically how it’s specific to Asian men? Also I think the Henry Golding example confuses me because I thought the point of the movie was that he was just hot even when his GF thought he was broke and she wanted him in spite of his money?? Idk idk I’m confused…
I’m confused by this comment because the movie was called crazy rich asians and it’s the whole theme 😅 also I think it was based on a book by an Asian author?
Perpetuated by Asian women themselves.
i’m filipina and i do claim olivia rodrigo as filipina. tbh, i haven’t seen much discourse from other filipinos that don’t claim her or say that “she isn’t filipina enough”. in fact, i am so glad that someone who is wasian herself, is so open and proud of her heritage. a lot of filipinos agree with that as well because with people like vanessa hudgens and shay mitchell- they do the opposite. they only acknowledge their filipino side when it benefits them and claim “spanish” instead when they are indeed HALF filipina.
filipino’s not wanting to claim olivia rodrigo as THE ‘filipino icon’ is because of our own colourism and putting half white and half filipino celebrities, actresses, actors, singers, etc… on a pedestal. we rarely have representation of FULL filipinos and you can see that in the philippines’ industry and you can see that with the pageants as well. i think a lot of us filipinos are just sick of our wasian counterparts being put as ‘superior’ than us. with their lighter skin tone, height, and more eurocentric features being broadcasted more in the industry and seen as more beautiful.
overall, i do think that olivia has done her best to show how much she loves her filipina side and is always proud of where her dad’s side of the family came from. i also think that we should have more full-filipino representation, but for now- olivia is our only filipina-pop princess here in the west and i think a lot of us are proud of her for that.
as a filipina, i also appreciate olivia being proud of her heritage. i feel too old to appreciate her music but i approve of her being proud of her heritage. in addition, i don’t understand people not liking her when there are “mestiza” beauties like liza soberano as one of THE aspirational filipina celebrity.
Yet she dates WM immediately after being famous come on now
@@arielgonzalez9993 who she dates doesn’t represent how filipina she is. it doesn’t mean she isn’t proud of where her dad’s side of the family comes from.
@ Then it reinforces the idea asian women no the background belongs to white men no matter what
@ that’s not what i’m saying. i don’t think it matters who she dates. as long as she is still connected with her roots and is proud of it. would you still care if she dates another person of different race, but still isn’t filipino? it’s like saying i’m not filipino enough because my fiancée is brown and not filipino.
I think the issue that society has when it comes to biracial people who are mixed with white is that they often get seen as the acceptable version of said race. For instance, Olivia is Filipina but she is essentially the “acceptable Asian” because she has fair skin, brown eyes, and some white features. It kind of puts them on a pedestal while those who are fully one race are left behind. It also is a different experience for biracial people than those who are fully one race. There is a very skewed version of representation in media.
I don't agree though that people should be telling others if they are Asian enough or Hispanic enough, etc. I also saw that discourse with Olivia. I remember when she first came on the scene people were harsh because she wasn't as intuned with her heritage but she had openly said she was proud of it even if she didn't grow up so immersed in the culture. It seems it wasn't until recently that she started to fully dwell into her culture more. I think that is a harmful thing to do to others as it erases a part of them. There is no “right” way to be a certain race. If it is a part of you and you own it then that should be enough.
oh 100% it’s easy to notice that lighter skinned mixed people are often the ones who are most popular, zendaya is a very large example of this as well. Whenever people discuss casting for a black role, she’ll probably be the most commonly picked one as, like you said, she’s seen as the “acceptable black woman”
@@Rockwith_gyu Indeed. The drama surrounding Tom Holland Romeo and Juliette co-star being "black and ugly" really highlighted this, so many people online were saying "if they wanted a black girl why not cast Zendaya? Francesca is ugly" ugly meaning she´s too black. People called her a gorilla, for crying out loud, the racism really showed.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
@@nanadecarvalho7840 yep the discourse was so horrible. Why not cast x (black & white) biracial actor instead of a nonracial black woman.
yep it’s all relative to “whiteness” to be acceptable at least in modern media/film 🫤
34:30 I don't know about Filipino-Americans, but Filipinos IN THE PHILIPPINES, have embraced Olivia Rodrigo wholeheartedly, we termed her our "pinsan" (cousin), her recent concert in Manila has proven to be the largest crowd for all her concerts on tour. Also, Bretman Rock, another Filipino, has acknowledge her as being a fellow Filipino more than Vanessa Hudgens, who has not even acknowledged her Filipino heritage (her mom is from the Philippines) and Shay Mitchell who instead said she is spanish, when her mother is also from the Philippines and a cousin of Lea Salonga.
Wild to be cousins with Lea and pretend you're European instead. That woman needs therapy
I read in several articles YEARS before Vanessa Hudgens became a Bigger Celebrity that Miss Hudgens stated she is Half Filipino.
She is half white that's easier in white supermacists countries
✝️🇵🇭👑👆
i’m barley wasian admittedly. my mother is half filipino. HOWEVER my father was a HUGE asian fetishist and the definitely affected my self esteem growing up, not even being overly “wasian” just knowing that i was born out of something so superficial is so saddening. my poor mother allowed him to name me asia jade and now it just follows me like a shadows i feel like i can’t even claim. am i alone in this?
I think I didn't get it as bad as you, I was a teenager when I found out my white dad's dating history was mostly Asian women, so at least he wasn't so open about it that I grew up with that defining me 😭 But while my dad wasn't that outright so at least I didn't get it at home, his parents/my grandparents had a whole house full of Japanese and Chinese dolls, paintings, knickknacks, etc. My boyfriend can never forget that when he went to meet them at their house for the first time, my grandfather greeted him with, "Welcome to Shangri-La!" This while they also clearly openly disapproved of my mother and the fact that my dad actually chose to /marry/ her. To them, Asian culture was exotic and worth collecting, but they still wanted their son to marry a white woman. But we still had a close relationship with them. It's a lot to unpack and was really hard on my mom especially.
You can change your name legally or even just socially if you’d like. Maybe it could help you reclaim a bit of yourself?
My Mother was also an Asian fetishist and because of her actions I struggled a lot with my name. It was to the point that I felt pain every time I had to write it down. I changed my name five years ago and it gave me a lot of relief.
It's a really difficult thing to deal with, and people sometimes struggle to understand the feeling. My situation was different but I understand what you're going through.
literally everyone is born from the deviant sex lives and kinks of our parents lmao Even the most proper of people are freaks behind closed doors and produce children in the strangest ways, all this to say your not alone.
Hi! I’m so sorry- that seems like a really difficult experience to navigate but you’re definitely not alone!! If you’d be interested in talking a bit more about your experiences and maybe even getting involved with my next video (or even j chatting privately), you can reach me at @freakonaquiche on instagram or by email at emmakredl@gmail.com!! ❤️
The desexualization of Asian men seems more centred around the male gaze than the female gaze. White men kind of decided for white and other non-Asian women that they weren’t attracted to less overtly masculine Asian men. For ages women have loved men that are “soft masculine” or even gender bending, like rock stars and boy bands, so Hollywood thinking that women can’t cast Asian men unless they are like Kronk level masculine is just extremely weird? You see it with how women love k-pop. Male K-pop idols in many ways do NOT adhere to typical white western masculinity and women love them. But women have loved soft masculine boy bands for decades within other races. But when western women with access to the internet, and not men in charge of Hollywood studios, are directly in charge of what men they are going to swoon over, women are more likely to love men that are both not as explicitly masculine and also not white. But male executives are more likely to only cast or promote one or the other. They are less likely to exist together.
The real question is why this happened with Asian men but not other marginalized men. Black men and Latino men face plenty of discrimonation but are generally sexually desirable.
This isn't remotely true. Only by the popularization of kpop very recently has there been some shift. Asian men are some of the least chosen demographic by women across all dating apps
@@cyberspace7208depends on the women for sure. But Indian girls thirst over white guys (not all Indian girls)
@cyberspace7208 honestly as an Indian man she's speaking facts. As much as I want to blame women, they are attracted to Asian men and Indian men too. The problem isn't my race. I just ugly😂😂😂 jk jk
@@cyberspace7208 that’s what I’m talking about with the popularization of K-Pop. I’m not saying the problem is over, but I’m saying I think it’s more about white men controlling their access to white women by controlling media and social morés, more than what women actually naturally wanted themselves. Now that women are waking up to what we actually want and like, I think white men are scared they will lose their “default option” status with women, especially white women. Controlling race by controlling white women’s reproduction has always been a tool of white patriarchy. Many white women have certainly participated in the issue with dating racism, participating in the victim narrative when caught, and fetishization, but I honestly don’t think we had the societal power to be the origin of it all.
It also depends on what you mean by Asian too. Men from different parts of Asia and North Africa can look completely different and have different stereotypes attached.
Giving the fact of Belly felt ugly before she turned "pretty"(she got contacts and braces removed 😭) I assumed that her being a wasian played a factor in it since she says that her white blonde friend, Taylor is the one who boys chase after but there wasn't anything in show that mention or even hinted at that compared to the novel, Starfish, which explores Kiko Himura who born to a Japanese father and white narcissist mother who constantly chip away at her self worth through snide remarks about her Asian appearance and heritage. I feel like Jenny Han likes the aesthetic of wasian but not their experiences.
Oh this is tea…
@emmakredl I'm not implying that monoracial Asian authors can't write about wasians and vice versa like Xixi Tian's debut This Place Is Still Beautiful explores the relationship between the Flanagan sisters born to an Irish American father and a Chinese immigrant mother. Margaret, the oldest pass for an Asian woman and more headstrong about racism while her younger sister, Annalie passes for white and wants to assimilate to fit in her majority white high school which isn't something you would find in Jenny Han's works.
@@agirlsrambles oh i was agreeing with you! i’d looking forward to checking out these works you mentioned:) tysm for your thoughtful comments
@@emmachangkredl you're welcome :)
tbf belly was white initially. she was changed to wasian after the success of to all the boys. i think jenny han writes about wasians because she does like the relative proximity to whiteness
i think all people of color are affected by this. i see a lot of discourse circulating online about how zendaya is constantly being casted as one of the only “black” actresses is hollywood, but she’s mixed.
Yes, this. As a Black woman, I have no issue with Zendaya or actresses like her who are half-white, half-black (Zoe Kravitz, Rashida Jones, Meghan Markle, Kat Graham, Lauren London, Halle Berry, Tia and Tamera Mowry, Taylor Russell, Tessa Thompson and the list goes onnn) but they have a completely different experience than the average Black woman in America. Being biracial is often a different experience in and of itself, and putting half-Black people in roles to represent fully Black people is disingenuous.
@@InternetGirl1093As a mixed race woman, I totally agree with your take. I find it appalling and unsettling for so many reasons.
White people have created a rule that if you are any race that is fully non-White, your existence isn't as valid as someone with White blood and White features. People of color, as the minority, have accepted this "rule" established by the majority. It's disgusting, and I'm glad that we, as a society, are beginning to openly unpack this truth.
@@InternetGirl1093And Amandla Stenberg. I remember how confused people were that she was playing a dark skinned black girl in “The Hate U Give”. Even the cover of the book shows a darker skinned girl with type 4 hair, which both of those Amandla does not have.
Yes and she doesn't even look black. Like we all can see that. Sometimes when I am not looking hard enough I always think Zendaya is white until I recognise the actress. Like is a huge problem when it comes to black women. Two mixed-raced storms, the lead female in Lovecraft country is mixed but her sister who isn't a lead is actually black, the woman the prince in coming to America liked is a mixed race woman but her wayward sister is the black one, in the movie "Half of a yellow son" film the female lead who is supposed to be an Igbo woman from Nigeria is played by a mixed raced woman and her sister who isn't really a lead role is played by a black woman. I have been echoing this for years, they keep bringing mixed raced women to play black women in lead roles. Why did they use Zendaya as a lead in "the greatest showman" but her brother who isn't a lead is the full black one. Why isn't her brother mixed too?
You forgot to talk about our Wasian king Jake the American Dragon ❤
Isn't he just Chinese?
@@appa609 The dad is white.
And also Central Cee
@@dariuschambliss1221I think he’s busy trying to claim blackness by way of his Guyanese ancestry…it’s tragic really cause his Guyanese side has Chinese ancestry which is a beautiful culture in its own right but he’s too busy trying to be a niggaboo to embrace that Guyanese Chinese heritage/culture from his dad’s side.
Yes love him ❤
i'm half-jamaican/half-ghanaian. let me tell you, it's tough to explain my mixed experience. even though i'm fully Black, i'm from 2 cultures and feel adjacent to the mixed-race kid. on my jamaican side, there's a suspicion towards africans, no whistling for women, and somber funeral ceremonies. on my ghanaian side, i visited a slave castle back home but my family grew up with maids and an open bar. funerals are a good ol' fun time.
these two cultural identities often didn't mesh when i was a child, especially it was difficult to express either heritage in white neighborhood.
now i'm all mixed up, but i identify firmly as an artist because that feels like a certainty.
If it helps, even as an African, if your parents come from different countries within Africa you're considered mixed. If you're from different tribes/ community within the country you're still considered mixed. So don't feel out of place for it coz those are different cultures
Same here. I'm half Nigerian and half Zambian... but I was born in South Africa everywhere I go. I feel like a foreigner he afrophobia doesn't help either
As someone who grew up in Hawaii, I think I can share a different perspective of my own wasian experience. I’m 75% south east Asian, and 25% white.
Growing up in Hawaii, where Asians are actually the majority and white people are a minority, most of the people I knew, saw, and interacted with were full asian or mixed. Unless someone had blue eyes or blond hair, I pretty much assumed they had some type of Asian heritage, either fully or partial. If someone had dark hair and brown eyes, I didn’t even really consider the fact that they could be full white.
The family that I grew up around and was raised with, immediate and distant family members, were all from my Asian side. I did not really see or interact with my white side at all.
But growing up and living in Hawaii until I was 19, everyone I had met could tell I was Asian and also just assumed I was at least part Asian.
When I left Hawaii and moved to the mainland at 19, for the first time in my life, people had assumed I was 100% white. My first roommate, a black girl, was shocked when I told her that I was actually 75% south East Asian. And multiple other people, white people and even Asian people, assumed I was just white. And I didn’t like it.
But my husband is white, and he asked why I was offended by being white passing, which did make me feel bad, because I didn’t really know why it was a problem for me at first.
But after thinking about it, I know why. It’s not that I am ashamed or embarrassed or don’t like that I’m white, or that I dislike white people. I feel sort of ashamed that people don’t know I’m Asian. It feels like I’m somehow hiding my Asian heritage, even though it’s not anything I’m doing. It’s literally just because I’m white passing in appearance.
I don’t hate my white heritage, I just relate to and connect more with my Asian identity. So when people don’t see me as Asian, I feel like I am somehow betraying or misrepresenting that part of me.
I normally don’t comment on TH-cam videos, but I wanted to add that Henry golding’s mom is actually Dayak, the indigenous people of Malaysia. I think that’s some interesting context that gets overlooked. He is not Malay or Malaysian Chinese which are different ethnic groups.
i definitely agree that this is actually a really unique “wasian” experience as in the malaysian context, dayak people’s identity and experience are more similar to the indigenous people of america
🇵🇭🤝🇲🇾
This was a great video. As a canadien black woman myself, though I understand the broader experience of growing up in predominantly white area and the lack of reprensentation, I can't pretend to understand the asian or wasian experience. Really thankful for this video. You've put a lot of work into it and it was super insightful, interesting and educating.Thank you for this great content! Keep going!
Today I learned Vanessa Hudgins ISN'T latina. 🤯
IKR!!!!!!
If remember correctly,late actress Naya Rivera was originally took the role as Gabriella,but declined the role.
Fr 😂
Same
Me but with Olivia Rodrigo
Vanessa Hudgens wasn’t even the only wasian playing Latina in the 2000’s! There was also Navi Rawat as Theresa in the O.C. I was also going to include Michaela Conlin as Angela in Bones but apparently her character is canonically wasian and Angela Montenegro is a name she made up on her 18th birthday. My bet is she was written to be Latina in the pilot, but after casting a wasian actress they were like ok let’s be real here
Don't forget steven skyler, who was of German and Thai descent yet played a hispanic latino power rangers in the nickelodeon adaptation of power rangers samurai (which already bastardized samurai culture). Apparently, because he was mixed and didn't look white, east asian, or south asian, the casting director and show writers and producers probably just assumed he was hispanic latino and he went along with it because he was a struggling actor. (He doesn't even have a spanish last name. How did this even happen?) [Special mention goes to Lalaine, who was of filipina descent and played lizzie mcguire's mexican friend. Because she didn't look east asian or south asian and had a Spanish last name, the casting director and show writers and producers and executives instantly thought she was mexican and she thought she had to accept that or she would never have another acting role. Apparently, if you are southeast asian and don't look east asian or south asian, non-asians don't think you are asian and just slap the hispanic latine label onto you.]
Also janina gavrankar as papi in the l word
There seems to be some idea that East Asians are all pale so if someone is brown they must be latino
The girl from the l word
Navi Rawat is Anglo-Indian we Indians don't use East Asian term "Wasian" Because no Indian uses that term Wasian... the term for half Indian and half white is Anglo-Indian and they're a normal minority group in India and abroad.... Charlie XcX and Freddie Mercurie for example were/are Anglo-Indians.
my thing about taylor hiding her ethnicity is that i could never not disclose my ethnicty because it's such a central part of how i lead my life. what if garrett didn't actually appreciate and respect her culture??? theres always subtext i look towards when dating someone that tells you whether they will tolerate or celebrate your culture and taylor decided to forego that. risky in my opinion
That moment was very uncomfortable. I get that she was trying to preserve the integrity of the experiment but I can’t get how you can have all those in depth conversations with someone without your culture coming up in several different ways and contexts unless you are carefully omitting it and if that is the case is this person getting to know your whole self. And I didn’t like Garrett’s reaction. He seemed panicked for a minute. I really thought he was going to pull a “she’s not my type” and “I’ve only dated blonds” when they came out of the pods.
The show is called "love is blind." The participants are supposed to know as little about what the other looks like as possible.
I assumed that she was trying to avoid the way non-Asian men fetishize Asian women. The idea being that once they see each other, she can introduce her culture to someone who likes her for herself and not for some gross and false stereotype about Asian women.
@@PeggyKoneko lol sure. delusional.
@@Abcdefg-tf7cuWhile I get what she was trying to avoid, its murky at best. What if her first name wasn’t Taylor and was Chinease instead. Should she have changed or hid it? A lot of things basically can give away race or culture and those things are core to what Love Is Blind is suposse to foster, about bonding on core values. core values and cultural background are often intertwinned. Look at Tom and Maria on Love is Blind UK, they were not culturally gonna work out, whatever else they liked about each other. Several black contestents on love is blind admit to knowing people on the other side of the wall were also black from various context clues. Kwame considered not using his name because of its cultural context, but that’s not really making yourself neutral…its making yourself ‘assumed white’ until clues lead to otherwise and that’s not being real, that’s also arguably being deceptive. I am not saying walk into the pods and state you race, height, and waist size in the first two minutes. But if culture naturally folds into the conversation, I don’t see how that makes Love is Blind less blind if it becomes a part of the deeper level of getting to know you. Race is not just how you look, it can be about culture as well and people have cultural histories that you absolutely would want to discuss before a marraige proposal. They walk out of the pods with the intent to MARRY for goodness sake. I don’t think anything garret imagined even if she had said her mom’s name was Fong would have told him much about how she looks that was significant.
It's the same in the Latino/Hispanic community; they view us as a monolith when it's not a race. We have white, Black, Mestizo, and Asian Hispanic/Latinos, like Argentina. Uruguay and Chile are mostly white, while the Caribbean has a lot of Afro-Latinos, and Peru, Brazil, and Mexico have a lot of Asian Latinos.
Especially because our countries were founded by colonization and immigration. So there’s no “original” Latin American race, everybody came from somewhere
Except indigenous people, who were already here, but they don’t consider themselves Latin American per se, but identify mostly with their ethnicity
yup!!
Chile is mostly mestizo, don't know why people keep saying it's majority white
Most Hispanics are Meztizo. Idk why you are trying to portray it differently.
@@anacarolinamenezes8912
And you got Cubans and Puerto Ricans plaging Mexicans in hollywood movies when in reality theres barely any Mexican representation in Hollywood.
One thing that has bothered me about some wasian representation is the concept of being mixed as “missing” or “longing” for whiteness, defining us in relationship to whiteness. I guess that’s sort of the sad wasian trope. It feels like so many wasian stories/narratives center around our relationship to whiteness and how we feel inadequate. I think a more diversity of stories will fix this. I acknowledge that this is an experience that so many so through, but it was never mine. I also think this perpetuates the online “beef” between monoracial Asians and mixed wasians, that all we do is seek validation from our white family/people and attempt to walk this earth as a white person.
Overall, the answer is always more representation in general, but especially more nuanced ones.
oh uh for me as a wasian, I want to be more Asian than white. Maybe the environment around me has influenced me to think that way since the city I live in is mostly asian, yet we’re still in America.
Also I don’t understand how some Americans don’t know that Indians are Asian too, like India is located in Asia too, hello?? Common sense? Think!!
This is interesting. I dated a wasian man who feels the same way you do. He wished he was more in touch with his Chinese side. He has a very white name, grow up in a white community, and only speaks English even though his Chinese grandmother only spoke cantonese (he grow up with her living in his house). His parents made the decision for him not to learn Cantonese. He is really proud of his Asian heritage and doesn't try to be white. He signed up for the chinese american board association because he felt more comfortable.
@@kofabilliona lot of ppl don't know anything about geography 😂😂😂
@@Play4keeks I feel like environment plays a role and influences us. I read some comments here that some wasians who live in mostly white areas wished they look more white and want to be in touch with their white side.
Yeah but for me, it’s the opposite. Some Asian ppl think I’m white while some white ppl think I’m Asian. Others of any race will have different opinions or think I’m mixed. Environment definitely played a role somehow.
@@kofabillion it's really wild to read this bc that's my experience and i've never heard anyone else say it before
Thanks for this video. As a half-white, half-Japanese woman from the US, I feel like I'm basically the most 'white-adjacent' or 'acceptable to white people' form of poc you can be, so I've often felt like my perspective and experiences are unwelcome or unhelpful in discussions around racism, like I'd just be distracting from bigger issues. It's nice to see discussion of this perspective and have a space to talk about it. I definitely relate to a lot of things Ethan was saying. I grew up in a predominantly white area, and maybe I never felt like I could be accepted and belong to whiteness because of that, so for most of my life I'd always kind of felt like my whiteness was something that delegitimized me as 'not Really Asian,' and tried to compensate and distance myself from it. Being half-white, being fourth generation, the fact that I only knew bits and pieces of Japanese, the fact that I didn't know that many other Japanese people around me, all of that felt like proof I wasn't 'really' Japanese. I latched onto manga and anime early on in life, and I'd be really happy when I got super tan in the summer, because I felt like it made me less white and thus more Asian, even though Japanese people also value paleness. Being less white and associating myself with any non-whiteness was more important to me. I've dabbled in hiphop, Latin guitar, Chinese yo-yo, etc- pretty much anything I came across that wasn't 'white' in trying to more solidly establish myself to both myself and everyone around me that I was 'other.' I haven't seen To All the Boys I've Loved Before, but I can relate to the sort of insistence being described on them being Korean while actually being displaced from it. I'll pretty much always relate more easily to any characters in media who aren't white (no matter if they're also not Japanese or not even Asian), but the way mixed race representation in Hollywood is treated like a way of diluting non-whiteness to make it more palatable to a white audience is frustrating, to say the least. Ae deserve a lot more representation onscreen of poc who aren't half-white, but I always get annoyed at the suggestion that half-white people have enough representation already. I don't think the people who are starved for representation would be happy if the only representation they had was being used as a 'diluted' version either, and I resent that the centering of whiteness has made mixed people into an adversary in some people's eyes. I don't think the tension in my family between my Japanese mother and my racist white grandmother would be particularly easy for a white audience to swallow if it were depicted honestly.
Half-Japanese myself, but what a different experience I had compared to yours! My Japanese side is much much more recently arrived to the US, and I grew up in a heavily ethnically diverse town, with lots of Asians (namely Koreans and Filipinos), with lots of mixtures - wasians, bkasians, ???sians. I wouldn't idealize it, but it definitely felt much more open and yeah there was racial shit, I definitely felt in some ways white-adjacent but also very not, maybe because I had much more recent, and stronger connections to Japan. But even then, my mom wasn't stereotypically Japanese either. She was much more rebellious
As an "immigrant" hafu, I agree about lack of true representation. I spent my young childhood and part of my adulthood in Japan and they let it be KNOWN that you are not Japanese enough and I am in fact hafu😅 So, I'm quite sensitive about casting people for roles that align with their ethnicity and/or background; i.e. cast a full Korean for a full Korean love interest, not a mixed person. It's not like there aren't enough actors to choose from 🙄 Hollywood is just not letting them get their spotlight.
i’m the same exactly even down to the japanese mother x racist white gradma combo 😭 at least we aren’t alone
@@zoemegu mine was white mom x Japanese racist grandpa😅
@@zoemegu😭🤝 at least we're not alone
You really hit the nail on the head! As a full Korean American I didn't really mind the casting choice for Nick in Crazy Rich Asians, but I hope to see more fully Asian men as love interests. I also think we first need to break the idea that Asian films have to be a certain way in general. A lot of Asian American critics are really honed in on "perfect representation" or well-made rather than a film being genuine. I can't wait to see all the Asian American media in the future, with all the diversity that is within "Asian American" even if it's a bad movie. As an amateur/hobbyist writer I hope to do what I can with my characters, I can't promise the story will be any good but I at the very least hope to write them as actual people.
Once again I'm reminded of how great John Cho was in Selfie...
Yeah although not to mention Nick Young’s actor is married to an Asian woman irl anyway but yeah
I think Nick Young's actor looking like a full Asian is why people weren't as upset as the other examples in Hollywood. I never knew that Henry Golding was mixed until I read about a news article on him. I thought he was an adoptee due to his last name.
@ yeah that’s understandable
@ Ross Butler is also Wasian but looks more Asian
I am Blasian. I would argue that we have it even worse 😂 Barely any representation in the media at all.
Except for Amandla Steinberg (Rue Hunger Games) even though she plays black characters she does have Asian ancestry.
tiger woods 😭
@@pan6529 Now he should speak on his racial issues faced in his life.
H.E.R, Nicki Minaj, Naomi Osaka, and Saweetie come to mind.
@@jawadough more "niche" but also UMI and Joyce Wrice
Jhene Aiko, Yoon Mirae, Naomi Campbell, and Sean Paul (I almost forgot about Naomi and Sean Paul). I can also add Yara Shahidi and Queen Naija, as Iranians and Yemenis are west asians.
Ethan is so real for shouting out Black popular culture as a means for escape or refuge from whiteness as a young mixed person growing up in white culture. I am half white and half Chicana and I too gravitated toward Black music and media as the only form of "other" I could find as a lil brown girl in Oregon. There was so much in this video that resonated with me and I thank you for putting out it.
Black people have really uncomfortable feelings about this. Because while other POC love using black culture as an escape from white assimilation and othering, those non-black people of color still bring the anti-blackness they learned from white culture with them when they interact with us. Loving our culture has never equated to loving our people.
What's Chicana?
Is that supposed to be flattering to black people? What makes you any different from white teens “rebelling” against their parents by using black culture?
@@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δ A woman of Mexican descent.
yeah so did alot of full white kids
36:03 Yeah, I'm never going to trust anyone trying to gatekeep "Asian-ness". It's just too large and varied to be flattened into some monoculture. For instance: I have a had fully ethnic Korean friends who are part of the South Korean adoption surge in the late 20th century who have no cultural ties to Korea, and were raised by White parents. It doesn't make them somehow less because of moments in their life they couldn't control.
You say this to get opportunity from full Asians. Your mixed not full asian there is different
To be asian you have to face discrimination Asians face cause of their physical appearance
it’ll only get more complicated as time goes on. My three brothers and I, plus my three cousins, are all 25% Japanese and mixed European (British, Spanish, Portuguese). I married a full Korean man, so our kids will be 1/8th Japanese, 50% Korean and 3/8ths mixed European. Depending on who my brothers and cousins choose to have kids with, we’re going to have some very mixed and interesting combinations that only get more diverse with time.
I’m a similar mix to you and my partner is Latino. People always ask if he’s Asian and I’m Latina. There’s more diversity within races than there is across them. Growing up mixed helped me realize how arbitrary race can really be.
Completely, I’m 1/4 Irish, 1/8th British, 1/8th French, 1/4 Indian, 1/8th Chinese and 1/8th Armenian. A lot of people are really shocked to hear that my grandma and her parents were mixed race, as if people haven’t been mobile and moving to different countries and falling in love since humanity began
i’m a very white-passing wasian (like the most, no one knows i’m half chinese, even other wasians can’t tell, no one believes i’m related to my chinese family) who grew up in a pretty chinese neighborhood. have always felt more connected with that side of my cultural heritage and i find myself looking for ways to bring it up not because i wanna make it my entire personality or anything, it’s just so weird having such a disconnect between your inner identity and outer appearance if that makes sense. like if i’m in a group with other asians/wasians and they don’t know then i feel like i’m being inauthentic or hiding something even though it’s literally just how my genetics turned out and i couldn’t control that lol. definitely feel like it ties into this theme of belonging you brought up. when i was in middle school i was kinda obsessed with the legend book series by marie lu and even though i don’t think i recognized this reason at the time, now that i’m older i know it was in part because one of the main characters is wasian but has blond hair and blue eyes, i.e. white features, but his wasian-ness is never in doubt. i think that meant a lot to younger me. one last thought is i am also very aware of the privilege i have simply by being white-passing that half of my family as well as many other wasians do not have, and it’s interesting to reckon with.
I’m a white passing Latino although white Latinos do exist my dad doesn’t have milky white skin despite being multiracial himself
I’m half Mexican and half white, and I love hearing stories and perspectives of other mixed people :) I think we all at the core had similar experiences with never being enough for either side and seeing proper representation in the media. Much love!! 🩷🩷
That’s great! Important to remember though, you can be white and still be Mexican, the difficult thing with Latinos is that we are not one specific race, and most often in the USA portrayals of Mexicans are mestizo, mixed race between the colonizers and indigenous folk. It’s a whole can of worms but that’s why we’re learning it in my Latino specific politics class.
@@user9391 Most of us know. The thing is most Latinos are mixed race which is why I don’t identify as any race. People shouldn’t try to force Latinos to identify as one race. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing but most of us are aware Latino is not a race, we just don’t feel comfortable identifying as any race because once again, most of the time we’re mixed!
@@user9391thank you, that’s a difficulty I have with the discourse in the US around Latinos. They usually don’t get our racial composition and diversity
@@user9391yup! Im half white(German/british) and half Salvadoran (Spanish/portuguese/indigenous/african). I turned out white! It’s a genetic lottery because my younger brother is the most melanated, looking just like my mom. It’s not like mixing paints together, you never know what your kids will look like
same here! im also half mexican and half white but i ended up looking more morena but while i look that i grew up with my white mom mainly and have felt dissociated with my mexican side and latinos ive met are confused and dont rlly accept me bc of my white side (even my own family thinks this and ive struggled w my identity since i was a child)
as a wasian who has struggled with identity all her life, this video essay was a little healing as I don't really ever get to talk about wasianness and my complicated feelings surrounding it with anyone I know. bc I'm only half-asian, I've never really felt like I could speak when it comes to topics like race, and writing this comment I still feel oddly imposter-y and hesitant to speak even when like you say, the wasian experience is infinitely varied. anyways, ty!!
i relate so much !! i always feel kind of like an outsider when it comes to discussions about race, seeing as im not fully anything it feels like. being able to talk about being wasian for even a little bit feels like a little bit of breathing room :)
@ it’s nice to connect with others who relate :)
Super interesting video. I’m half white half Asian and grew up in Japan in the 90’s. I went to an American school where most of my friends were also half Asian half white. I grew up in a micro society where there were three distinct ‘races’- the full white, full Asian, and half. Half was a well understood and represented group in my community so I never really experienced the feeling of having to choose or feeling alienated. So when I moved to the states as an adult, it surprised me that the majority of people had an understanding of racial identity as one or the other, and “half” didn’t exist as its own well defined and understood and accepted identity. Now living In Hawaii, being multi racial is so common and I do feel like it’s the one place where I blend in.
This makes me think of Mark-Paul Gosselaar who played Zach Morris on Saved by The Bell. He's actually half Indonesian and they made him dye his hair blonde to erase his Asianness.
:0
There are no Hispasians. People just write them off as Filipinos 😂 .
My buddy Marco who is half Chinese and Mexican found out that out the funny way.
half hispanic half asians look like slighter tanner but lighter haired and sharper featured people
I'm Mexican and had a Chinese great grandparent somewhere and look fairly mixed
I never realized growing up, but as I got older, people just kept commenting on how Chinese I looked and they were scared I would feel offended
As if being asian is a nad thing😂
So I already try to say "yes I am, and of course you can ask, because I am."
@@Kaybye555Enrique Inglasias is Spanish and Filipino.
🇵🇭🤝🇧🇷🇦🇹🇵🇷🇲🇽
My GMA is 75% Chinese but she was raised in Central America. We’ve always talked about going to China and I’ve always been someone who’s interested in the places I come from. Ik going to China isn’t gonna feel like a “welcome home” even for her even tho she looks like she would n especially for me since I’m half black but I feel like it’s nice to still see and go. the wasian experience is def something I don’t relate to but I luvEd seeing the movies/ books I luvEd and have people like me not really be connected to their Asianess but not shy away from it and it’s comforting. The world always just saw me as black so as I got older I made it a point to say what I am when asked bc I’m proud of who I am and where my family came from
Sometimes it can get hard when your existence is resistance. Keep going strong and both those heritages are dope as hell 🫶🏻✊🏻
@ ty❤️ my house and family is a very diverse place lol. I still keep looking into it and trying to learn more.
@@Theemackxo same I’ve been trying to build a family tree
This was such a fascinating discussion. I am biracial ( black mom/ white dad) and I know for myself growing up I was always used as a comparison for what biracial could look like. I distinctly remember a person commenting to me as a child that I came out “plain” compared to my friend who was also biracial black/white but who was perceived as more ambiguous or white passing which for a long time left me feeling like I didn’t deserve to take up either spaces and like I had failed some test because other people around me were picking at how I looked and asking why my dad has such beautiful eyes and why I didn’t get them etc. anyways it is really fascinating to listen your your analysis as well because as you said there is a sort of tricky area where people either say your basically white and discredit the other half of you. Thank you for making this video and sharing your thoughts as well!! I recently found your channel and immediately subscribed! -Kira
Is that why black/white biracial people who look closer to their black side make it a point to mention they’re biracial? I feel like when I see ambiguous looking biracial people they don’t claim being biracial as much, sometime they’ll even just say they’re black. Like is that an insecurity if you more closely resemble an unambiguous black person?
As a mixed person, i don't even get proximity to whiteness. No one mistakes me for being white.
My last name is Ramirez. I'm a mix of native American, European, and Chinese. People assume I'm Filipino, or maybe dark skinned Japanese.
I lived in Hawaii for a little, and that was the only place where people just accepted me for my appearance. I definitely didn't fit in though.
I've long since given up on feeling represented in media.
I only resonate with characters that are simply othered.
It isn't just us that experience this. Black people end up othered in black communities too. Spicy white people get the same treatment.
Realistically, we need to really drop this whiteness stuff.
Man, the fung brothers are so cooked. This is exactly why I don't feel welcome in Asian communities.
I'm always told I'm not Asian enough. I don't speak the language. I didn't grow up in a completely Chinese environment.
Yeah, I know. I'm literally only half, so thanks for telling me I'm not welcome here, and I'll never be good enough. Honestly, most of the shared experience that we have is simply a similar experience of racism. So I get why that isn't very profound.
This is why I know I'll never get representation. If it does happen, I know it is just because the market says it wants to co-opt my image for profit. They only understand or recognize culture when they can sell it. That doesn't lead to anything except dehumanization via the market.
Representation in media is a false idol.
See, I think the guy emphasizes that his family is half Korean because he is constantly reminded that he doesn't fit in with full Koreans. Like, I don't own the Chinese label because I'm not fully Chinese.
Preach
THANK YOU. "Proximity to whiteness" seems more like "having an advantage in understanding white people and their cultural ways" or "being able to code switch more easily," or even just "having white people who accept you because of your family" more than meaning that you're actually somewhat white. Cause I'm Wasian and I've never been perceived as white, either. I agree with you that I only resonate with characters that are simply othered.
I think Asian parents clinging to whiteness as a model minority is a big part of just Asian-American insecurities(those of us that are first or subsequent generationally). For instance, my mother from Vietnam was the only one of her siblings to marry someone white. And she straight up told me when I asked her why she didn’t teach me Vietnamese: “if I wanted you to be Vietnamese, I would’ve married a Vietnamese man.” I think back on that a lot because she’s made many different excuses for not really submerging us in “the culture”, but I also understand it. She has generational trauma as the youngest and only daughter out of four children, so I get why she might have subconsciously chosen to distance herself from that to follow the “American Dream”. Maybe that’s the real experience for Asian-Americans, and wasians are the stepping stone to achieving “the dream”. In the end Asian-Americans time and time again have this longing to be part of a culture, but are too separated from their heritage and whiteness to be apart of either. My cousins are closer to Vietnamese than I’ll ever be, but I know when they visit the homeland, they’re still seen as foreign. I’m also in the art scene lol, and I don’t really breach the topic of heritage in my pieces for this reason basically. Like my mother is from Vietnam, but I assume I can only claim the vague experience of being Asian-American (racism, fetishization, loss, and depression).
Anyway I’m terrible at having one concise point, but I’m going to Vietnamese next summer and I don’t know the language. :,)
Self hatred is huge in the EAST/SOUTHEAST Asian community luckily West and South Asians don't have this self hating mindset to marry white and remove your own culture
It’s ok just take it as an opportunity to connect with ur heritage and stuff. And you can learn some basic Vietnamese through language apps
Yeah and I know some people whose Asians moms were disowned for not marrying Asian men. I’m a quarter Latino but my dad is more Latino than I am and has brown skin. My mom almost got disowned until she got pregnant with me
The casting of Henry Golding felt contextual to the CRA book given that the book was centered on a rich, generational family in Singapore and had the undertones of the family benefiting from their closeness to the British colonizers. Given that Henry is Wasian in that casting makes sense given that this connection between Wasian and rich in SE Asia is still prevalent, in which many Wasians in SE Asia benefit from their proximity to whiteness and wealth. This is also my experience being in international schools in Asia and having many Wasian classmates; which I think a lot of North American audiences failed to see - how much being in close proximity to whiteness in a non-North American context is a huge privilege.
Singapore has a wide variety of social issues which the movies don't address, because the movie isn't about Singapore's social issues.
I do agree something like that could be explored in visual media such as film and television, but CRA isn't it.
Nick is supposed to be Chinese, full Asian. If they want to show he's mixed, they can go the Pernarakan route which is more historically accurate. But nope, in a cast of all full Asians, only the leading man has to be half white. Just that one leading man. It's sending a message.
@@captlancTbh 'Chinese' isn't actually an ethnicity. I'd go as far as saying 'Han Chinese' is also a largely cultural marker with extreme diversity and plurality within.
I don't think many people know or acknowledge this fact unfortunately - which explains how racialisation works.
@@CptNemo-l3s Sure, but if you want to go that far, then you might as well say all ethnicities are constructs and none of them really exist.
Nick Young is supposed to be Chinese Singaporean. “Young” is a Chinese last name, NOT a Malaysian one. Chinese ethnic Singaporeans also make up about 80% of Singapore’s population. Henry Golding wouldn’t be accurate for the role. Arguably the actor that played his best friend who was having a wedding, Chris Pang, would have been a more accurate representation of the Nick Young character.
when you mentioned how Olivia could just identify as American instead of Filipino but it would be erasure, it reminded me of how no one knew Darren Criss was Filipino until recently
"Breeding out the color" was a historical European policy and is still prevelant today.
What?! Bro’s half Filipino?!
Wha??? I thought that was very known from his glee days. I saw a lot of interviews around 2012. 🤷🏻♀️
As a Laotian / Southeast Asian I didnt even know Henry was half bc I know so many people in my family that looks like him, but even so I didn’t mind bc he was literally one of the only Southeast Asians (half native Malaysian at that and not a Chinese Malaysian) casted in a sea of East Asians which is another issue the Asian community deals with ie all those East Asians voicing Southeast Asian characters in Raya and the Last Dragon movie.
as a wasian girl who grew up in a super white (also canadian!) neighborhood, i loved to all the boys so much in my early teens because it helped me realize i was allowed to "claim asianness" despite not having a strong sense of cultural identity, and simultaneously opened my eyes to the idea of representation that does not revolve around one aspect of identity (like race), but it is important context and a life experience all the same. growing up mixed race is so hard to reckon with because often our parents don't know how to teach us how to exist. white people see us as too asian to be white, and asians see us as too white to be asian. i don't look white but i haven't faced the same amount of discrimination as some of my fully asian peers. i don't look like my dad's daughter when we go out together but i'm the odd one out at the asian supermarket. i can't follow european OR asian makeup tutorials. i love my mom's chinese food, but my (white) friend's mom makes an awesome noodle stir fry too. it's such a strange and specific experience and i really hope people will talk about it more in the future. this video is absolutely amazing :)
TBH, what's extra hypocritical about Henry Golding being casted to play the lead in Crazy Rich Asians, is that Brenda Song wasn't casted for Crazy Rich Asians because she was not considered "Asian enough"
But, didn’t John Cho clear that up and day nobody ever said that to her?! He was there during her audition
Not just Brenda song but Jamie chung as well and people (mostly asian guys and non-asian folks) mocked them for calling it out, even though the average person in Singapore looks more like Jamie chung (a non-mixed asian woman; east asian in her case) and Brenda song (a mixed asian woman; southeast asian and pan-asian in her case) than sonoya Mizuno and kina grassis (mixed asian women that are multiracial). Non-asian people didn't understand why they complained about being told they got rejected for not being chinese and pointed out how there were plenty of non-chinese asian actors and non-chinese multiracial asian actresses in leading and supporting roles and thought they were just mad and jealous that they weren't picked. Asian guys mocked them and called them jealous self-hating race traitors that are "old" (older than 24+) and past their prime trying to use outrage against the movie for clout; even though these same guys were complaining about Henry golding, remy hii, and nico Santos being in the movie (Henry and remy being biracial and nico being gay) and lusting over sonoya and kina because of how "exotic" they looked. The movie was released during the time when the popularity of the Asian pua movement was dying down but there were still plenty of asian guys looking for any reason to harass an asian gal (especially a non-mixed asian gal) - common reasons being feminism, not considered attractive or desirable by asian beauty and femininity standards, and having a non-asian male partner. [Only reason Michelle yeoh managed to escape a lot of this because she is old, therefore not considered attractive, desirable, or worth harassing by these guys.] Constance wu and Gemma chan were also getting harassed by those guys but Jon chu and the casting directors couldn't reject them from auditioning because they were of Chinese descent and it would look suspicious if they got rejected from auditioning, so that hatred got placed onto Jamie chung and Brenda song instead. [Before anyone mentions Kris aquino and tumurbaatar enkhtungalag, while they are not chinese and aren't mixed, they played background characters no one remembers - a wealthy royal old foreigner and an old lady that was one of Eleanor's friends respectively. Also, all of the female pan-asian actresses in the movie were part-chinese while ken jeong, henry goulding, nico santos, sonoya Mizuno, and kina grassis weren't chinese at all (but no one was mad about that because they were men or biracial women).] Jon chu may have tried to dismiss it and said/think it wasn't personal, but clearly, Jamie and Brenda didn't think so. When you are constantly getting attacked by the asian manosphere, asian guys, asian nlogs, asian pick-mes, anti-feminists, racists, and non-asian trolls and you are struggling to get roles, it is not hard to see why Jamie and Brenda were pissed at Jon chu, kevin Kwan, and the casting directors of crazy rich asians. Jamie didn't mean for Henry to be subjected to asian gate-keeping trolls and she apologized to him for that, but she was right about how sexist and hypocritical the crazy rich asians casting seemed to be and Brenda's story further confirmed this. No one (except the asian gals that have been harassed by the asian manosphere and asian anti-feminists) took their stories seriously but months and years later, there has been numerous stories and revelations about all of the shady stuff that happened behind the scenes of that movie and a lot of those horror stories mentioned or implied sexism - like the one where Adele lim left the project because she found out she was underpaid and they would not raise her pay or give her a promotion. Turns out Jamie's and Brenda's stories were warning signs and foreshadowed the scandals and horror stories that would come out of the crazy rich asians movie production. Also, asian gate-keeping is highly gendered because multiracial and pan-asian asian guys like Henry goulding, ryan potter, tyga, chris brown, daniel henny, sneako, elliot rodger, markiplier, Darren Criss, bruno mars, neyo, zayn Malik, dean cain, and tiger woods do not get harassed or hammered as much for this (sometimes even praised) as multiracial and pan-asian asian gals like Chloe Benet, Olivia munn, peyton Elizabeth lee, tinashe, nicki minaj, michelle khare, betty nguyen, anna akana, tata young, karruche tran, kamala harris, safiya nayigaard, jorn from kitchen and jorn, and h.e.r do and asian gals (especially non-mixed asian gals) get judged a lot more harshly for not being "asian enough" and dating/marrying out (whether in an interracial or pan-asian relationship) than asian guys (who are often excused and sometimes even praised for not being as "asian" and get praised and promoted for dating/marrying out).
I've always identified as "wasian" despite being only 1/4 Asian. My grandparents were the more stereotypical "white man marries Asian woman" and I saw it affect my father in both positive and negative ways. I think being born in the 50s as a half Japanese in America was really defining for my dad. I know for a fact that my grandparents experienced a lot of racism as an interracial couple, and my dad never spoke of it but I think he did too. I got the impression he didn't feel like he belonged in America because there was so much animosity towards the Japanese at the time (post Pearl Harbor), but he also didn't feel like he fit in when they lived in Japan because of the xenophobic culture. He passed fairly recently and I feel like I've lost a huge connection to my (barely) Asian identity in losing him. Thank you for making this video, it makes me happy to see the wasian experience discussed so broadly now. I always felt insignificant in the realm of wasians, but I will never let that repel me from accepting and loving that part of myself.
hey if a huge part of the wasian experience is the feeling of not being asian or white “enough”, it would be so unfair and hypocritical for anyone to say that your experience is less valid bc you’re not wasian “enough” !!! and also i find your fathers story to be very relatable esp about pearl harbor-coming from a military (both japanese and american navy) family. very sorry for your loss
@zoemegu Thank you. I shouldn't need it, but it is so comforting to be validated and understood. I love knowing people in the world get even a little bit of my experience♡ Just know I'm out here, hopefully understanding a little bit of yours too :)
I feel you as a quarter Asian blasian person
@@Softdrama978 what has your experience with your Asian heritage been like?
@@bizness2000in the black community it is kind of made fun of to bring up your mixed heritage especially if you’re less than half because it’s seen as you running away from your blackness. Also I had a family member on my non Asian side who would compare my sister and Is traits and talk about how I looked regular black and she looked blasian. So I basically don’t talk about my Asian identity much to people out of shame.
The cast of the live action “ Avatar the last air bender” has 5 prominent roles played by Wasian actors. And I wasn’t trying to diminish things but the massive effort for culturally accurate casting and scandal for Sokka to just end up doing this instead seemed incredibly odd to me. For Sokka, Suki, Aang, Jet and Azula.
My theory about why Vanessa Hudgens was cast Latina is partially that Disney Channel in the 2000s was trying to market itself heavily to a Latin American audience and Latin American diaspora, think about Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, Vanessa Hudgens vicariously. After Miley Cyrus left Disney it really feels like the LAUNCHED Selena Gomez, in a way no other Disney actress at the time got. 20% of Americans are Hispanic, it’s a diaspora so large it’s even bigger than whole Latin American countries populations, and then there is a massive audience in Latin America that I think Disney wanted to tap into.
Selena Gomez isnt that famous in Latin America
The Asian female and white male combo is such a cliche that I don’t see the love as unique. I definitely hold a bias but I’m open to getting to know people and seeing the nuance.
Totally, agree it’s not genuine it’s terrible all around!
In East Bay California it's a given, not only are my classes filled with half asian students but like two halves asian students (when two half asian people have a kid), I even have a half scottish half asian student with the reddest hair and freckled asian feautures
I used to think that way for many years until I started watching native Asian/black/white couples. I was so fearful of what was going to find. But honestly, it has completely changed my negative conception of the trope. I've never come across more authentic, genuine loving couples and their families and friends. It exists, we are just so focused on what we're shown in the West, this has completely distorted and narrowed our understanding of Asian inter racial/cultural couples. I'm glad I got out of that space, because I feel knowing these other couples has restored my faith in humanity in general. ❤
@ oh please talk about kissing ass and being a white worshipper it’s embarrassing😂
@@juliannehannes11i dated a half Chinese half Irish man...he had black hair on his head, soft brown eyes, and a big RED beard 😂😂😂😂😂 and he is from El Cerrito
I’m a black woman and I loved this video didn’t expect to finish it
Not the shen Yun ad after 💀
HAHAHAHA
Thank you for making and sharing this video! I really enjoyed it!
Thank you! hehe
before Joy Luck Club, the movie Flower Drum Song (1961) was the first major Hollywood film to have a mostly Asian American cast! one of the lead characters is played by Nancy Kwan, who is mixed Chinese and white, although in the movie she's portraying a non-mixed Chinese American. she was originally offered a role as one of the mothers in joy luck club, but turned it down reportedly because the script denounced her breakthrough movie, The World of Suzie Wong (1960). Nancy Kwan was in competition for the role of Suzie Wong, which initially went to France Nuyen, another mixed Asian actress who was well known for her role in South Pacific (1958), before she dropped out of the movie. France Nuyen would go on to play one of the mothers in Joy Luck Club.
also interesting about The World of Suzie Wong, the makeup artists for the movie attempted to make Nancy Kwan appear "more Chinese" for the (non-mixed Chinese) role through makeup. i would love to hear more of your thoughts on passing in regards to people who are mixed Asian and white. while reading through the comments, i noticed that a number of mixed asians here referred to themselves as white passing. opposite to you, i grew up usually being one of the only asians i knew (i'm mixed korean/white) and i never would have thought of myself as white passing because the people around me never let me think for a moment that i was white. it wasn't until i went to college in a very asian area that my half-whiteness defined me more than my half-koreanness and it was extremely difficult to process as an 18 year old.
as an aside, i majored in asian american studies with a personal focus on mixed asians in america. at the time it was an extremely niche topic (and certainly still is) but i love to see more critical thought on our experiences in the world ❤
Just finished the vid and sharing some thoughts and reactions (caveat that I am a non-mixed brown Filipino who regularly experiencing colorism growing up + I generally think the topic of media representation takes up too much space in Asian American discourse)
1) I saw you commented there will be a part two focused on sexualization/desexualization and I don’t know how much of a focus there will be on mixed Asian people but it would be, if possible, to hear from mixed Asian people who are not mixed with white.
2) I appreciated the facts and history you presented early on and was surprised to see that of the mixed race Asian people in the US only about a third are mixed with white, considering the outsized influence “wasian-ness” has on Asian discourse. The fact that a majority of mixed Asian discourse - including and maybe even esp convos on representation - focus on Asian and white mixed Asian people is harmful (in many ways) when so many mixed Asian people are mixed with other races (Latino and Pacific Islander are super common the west coast/Hawai’i).
3) Colorism, featurism, texturism is also prevalent among Asian communities and that, when mentioning why Filipinos may not want Olivia seen as their “Filipina icon” (although I’m surprised to hear this as I see Filipinos in the US and PH rly support her), that point cannot be overstated. I don’t (and don’t expect this from Olivia) see wasian Filipinos who are perceived as white or Spanish or whatever as someone I can relate to when I am unambiguously brown and experience racism outside of my community and colorism within.
4) Both the US and PH focus on wasian and/or light skinned Filipinas exclusively (media, airplane hostesses, beauty pageants, etc). In the Philippines long history of beauty pageants we JUST had our first Blasian (Chelsea Manalo) Miss Philippines and have had so many wasian ones, which feels like an indictment of what we see as “beautiful” and “marketable.”
5) Because of the aforementioned, the towards wasian representation from Asian people are a whole lot more than “you need to prove it.”
5) Perhaps this will be in pt 2, but Ethan’s clip at the end reminds we cannot separate the exploitative labor and military and tourist policies from white and Asian couples in North America. There is often a large economic and capital gap (and even age gap) between many middle aged couples right now. Even today there are still a lot of white ppl, typically men, who search for a much younger and poorer wife in the global south.
**ofc I recognize this video was “we need to talk about wasians” but did want to share some meta thoughts on the overall mixed Asian convo
Hello! Thank you for your thoughtful comments :) the next video will honestly be focusing mostly on white/asian mixed people again because I’ll be talking about wasianness, the history of white/asian interracial relationships and orientalism… but! I will be discussing your fifth point in depth for sure! And! I’m already planning my part 3 on colourism and I will be taking your points into account in my writing process when the time comes ❤️ will also be discussing mixes other than white/asian in that one!!
From the perspective of a black person, I understand why people in the Asian community would want someone of mixed race to “prove” their Asianness. It sounds silly, but usually biracial people (black+white or another race) benefit from the way they look (as you stated) and use it to choose when they want to be black and when they don’t. I think people are being protective over the community.
@00:45 I semi-disagree that this doesn't lead to more discussion about her identity. He DID state he was bothered that she wouldn't reveal her race and he claimed that this made him feel that she was trying to hiding thing. Ironically, it did help to reveal his covert racism, as he tried to flip things and claim her hiding her race made him uncomfortable, not because he was racist and paranoid that she might be another race outside of Yt, but because it made him feel she was being closed off and dishonest. It annoyed me that the final episode where they get together and talk never brought his concern about her race and admission that he had only dated ppl of his own race.
There’s many Asian people that only date Asian people of the same culture, that’s hardly problematic is it?
I think it's interesting people of "pure race" criticize mixed races for being represented in media, yet culturally do not open up their spaces for these mixed individuals. Mixed people are never "enough" of any of their ethnicities to fully blend in or be accepted for being so. I appreciate mixed representation for that reason. Makes me feel less alien. But I do also believe fully blooded Asians need SO MUCH MORE representation in media. They're always on a backburner. But also, to the non-filipinos criticism of wanting more "fully blooded filipinos"... really think about that statement lol. What do you know of filipinos if you aren't one? Filipinos are probably the most ethnically and racially diverse Asians out there. To say you want a "fully blooded Filipino" wtf are you talking about? 😂
Edit: this is not in relation to the video but rather the comment section.
I completely agree!
I’m also waisan (half white/ half Japanese) and remember hearing that To All The Boys I Loved was getting a movie and was so excited. But then I saw the trailer and was confused by why Lara was played by a full southeast Asian actress instead of a waisian person. Watching this video and hearing how the author really only saw her as more of a cultural bridge metaphor than a person really explains a lot.
I can kinda relate with the absence of an Asian mother though as my mom would often have to fly to Japan for months to tack care of her family, so it would just be me and my dad. He never tried to cook Japanese food for me or try to get me to invest more in my culture since I already grew up going to a Japanese school program where I lived, had lots of Japanese media access, had lots of waisian and Japanese friends, and generally lived in an area with a high Japanese population. So I can see why the portrayal of the white dad in the film trying to get his daughters to connect more with their Asian background comes off as a stereotype.
Also did you know Tim from Brainpop is waisan? It’s so random but kinda funny lol
there's a ton of white and japanese people in media and you're upset that a vietnamese actor got a chance? what is wrong with you lol
@ I’m not offended but just don’t understand why they hired a Vietnamese actress to play a character whose mixed race half-Korean identity plays a central role to the story. Growing up as a Korean American is very different from Vietnamese American. I heard that the actress who played Lara grew up in a cultural mixed home and can relate to her character’s experience, but it’s still different because she didn’t grow up with the Korean-American experience. To assume that all Asian/Waisan Americans have the same cultural experiences is over generalizing and racist. But unfortunately this is how Hollywood sees them when casting.
I feel like casting Lana, who’s of Vietnamese origin, to play as a half Korean character falls into the stereotype of western media always having Asian characters be played by ethnically wrong Asian actors. In Memoirs of a Geisha, they hire Chinese actors to play Japanese characters, hell Lana herself has even played explicitly Japanese characters. This pattern of miscasting is harmful because it perpetuates this idea that Asians are interchangeable and all the same, when in reality, it’s not.
I actually wanna see more southeast Asian representation and am TIRED of seeing white or white-passing waisans always getting casted. But casting SE Asian actors to play as ethnically wrong Asian characters just feels wrong and perpetuates Hollywood’s racist view on seeing all Asians as the same. Instead, we should push for them to make more movies/shows with southeast Asian people, culture, lives as the main focus! Instead of seeing Lana star in a movie about the Korean-American experience, I wanna see her be in a movie about a teenage Vietnamese American girl’s experience! I wanna see underrepresented actors actually get to represent their race and culture on screen, instead of having to represent someone else’s.
@@さくら-l8tidk, I'm Malaysian, born and raised, and whenever a korean or vietnamese or whatever type of asian speak about their experiences, I still relate to them. So it's not that "VERY different" to me. Also, that's a lot of words, maybe you could make your own video, I'd be the 1st to watch.
@@さくら-l8tyeah I think they just saw she played Lara Jean the best than other people who auditioned that’s just my opinion but I agree. Also Lara Jean is supposed to look fully Asian out of her sisters
@@さくら-l8tyeah although the actress was adopted by Caucasians and she & her brother also adopted were the only Asians in school
Be curious to see how the Sad Wasian differs and matches the Tragic Mullato.
You should read the Mixed Metaphor!! Andrea Long Chu writes about it :) i put a link in the description
I really identified with what Ethan said. I’m not half, my parents are both Asian however I grew up in 5 different countries and identify with different aspects of each culture that formed me during significant parts of my development. That is to say, as a 4th culture kid, I also looked to art, music, etc. especially in various counter cultures to shape my personality identity and sense of self. I’d never linked my identification through my taste in art, to my mixed cultural identity before, and love that Ethan has me thinking on it now.
I’m black, and it’s nice to see that other races are dealing with the same thing, and also surprising. Some of the wasian actors named, I didn’t even realize were half white. It made me realize that when you don’t have representation of what Asians actually look like, it’s easy to think the media is correct. Just like how a lot of white people don’t understand that biracial actresses keep being promoted as fully black characters
Wasians often dive into white American culture so easily and so much it’s new to hear of any issues after doing so or being around it. Even fully Asian children raise by adopted parents I see it.
All the same I’m learning of some new avenues of identity and discomforts.
Honestly I felt that Jenny Han self-insert herself into Lara Jean’s character, because the three sisters canonically(in the book) were the oldest sister looking ‘mixed’, Kitty looking the ‘whitest’, and Lara looking the most ‘Asian’ tbh
Correct and I’m sure Lana was the best fit out of all the girls who auditioned
Great video! Beef between Asians is always sad.
The way people feel the needs to define themselves as percentages, or provide proof points as to why they deserve to be seen as Asian.
I am second gen, so I've experienced the struggles of "Not being Asian enough" through not speaking the language, or knowing certain history or cuisine or musicians or whatever.
I don't understand how other Asians who have experienced that struggle feel like they can pass judgement on "Asianness" on other people.
Surprisingly enough I know 2nd gen Asians or Latinos fully ethnic or not go through that anyway tbh. Mainly cuz their mom has generational trauma
You bring up a pertinent point as a full Asian myself. While mixed have different challenges the third culture one is still similar.
As a second gen that is really Asian (put me in East Asia and I’ll blend in) I get treated as one of them when I travel. That is almost unheard of. The difference is that I have the mannerisms, the language, culture, music etc. so a lot of the general talking points and nostalgia I will understand despite not growing up in Asia. While I have western influence I made a conscious decision to be very in tune with Asia starting young. Every other Asian could’ve made the same decision. I just code switch when needed.
That’s very different from the typical diaspora who were known for rejecting their Asian side and would bully the internationals. There’s a lingering resentment in the motherland for that.
That’s why other Asians pass judgement. They don’t know if you’re just unfortunate or that you actively sought proximity to whiteness.
To add, in East Asian culture we are a big fan of actions speak louder than words. 10x that expression in Asia. So the judgement comes from top down. You want to be proud to be a Chinese or whatever else? Learn the language or it’s not very convincing. It’s harsh but it’s true and I had to relearn and natives were only supportive. Even foreigners can’t say they love a culture without learning its language first. Respect goes up once they do.
Perhaps this gives you a different angle of understanding
I am half chinese and half white (italian). As a result, I get asked if I'm filipina, latina, mexican, spanish, even indian once. I am what you would call ambiguously asian and people still get confused by the way I look, especially because of my olive skin and bigger eyes. Never have people actually asked me what my race is, they always just assume, which is horribly frustrating, especially since I was raised Chinese, have a Chinese name, and speak Chinese. Asian people think I look more white than chinese and i have been ostracized as a result, and for white people its the opposite (they think i look more asian, "latina", etc.) Being wasian is like existing in a weird in between space that no one really except you or other wasian people really understand. Thank you for making this video, Emma, its so nice to see someone like me really talking about the way we feel!
Thank you for making this video! It put a lot of feeling I've had about being Wasian into words
i'm so glad you called our attention to how power dynamics operate when it comes to publishing and casting, which often forces asian authors (and other creators of color) to ensure that white people are represented in ways that keep white audiences interested (ie as the main love interest, as the only surviving parent, as the best friend, etc.). we can be so hard on poc for these compromises many have to make in order to just get their work out there yet little attention is given to those who are putting the pressure on them to do so
Hello, this is my first video from you, and I would have to say from this video you have gained a subscriber. Also, this topic is actually very touching to me because, I would like to do this similar format, but for the Blasian experience in America.
Some of these comments are actually crazy, I'm sorry you have to read them. People sometimes forget they're saying this stuff to a real human being. I'm a black woman and I learned so much from this, looking forward to more of your videos❤
this video really struck a chord with me. i’m white, but i’m half turkish and half american. having an english first name and no accent helps me pass off as simply american, while my dad would describe himself as “white by definition, but not white enough to be treated like one.” i barely spoke turkish growing up, and i only visited my family in turkey once when i was in preschool. i don’t feel “turkish enough” to be able to call myself middle eastern.
but at the same time, i don’t feel like i fit in with my white peers either. i know that out of all my friends, i’m the only one with an immigrant parent. my friends get concerned about my dad getting deported, which is sweet, but he’s been a citizen for over a decade. the way my peers talk about conflicts in the middle east makes me sick. i know that if i had been from other middle eastern countries, and lived there, then they would not see me as a proper person. and even though my first name is english, i have spent so much time teaching people how to pronounce the “ç” and “ü” in my last name.
it’s a difficult identity to puzzle out, but i’m very excited for the day i can feel at peace with myself.
As a 3rd generation Asian American I fully agree that there is still a disconnect with my Asian cultures being in the US. I speak neither languages of my cultures and I am deemed as racially ambiguous very often. This discourse means a lot to me thank you for this video!!
My kids are Blasian. I found this video super interesting!
We are in Tokyo so they see themselves as Japanese although they are proud of their heritage. Whats interesting is they have afro hair 🪮 and beautiful dark skin and it frustrates others (ironically non Japanese) who are expecting to see a predefined version of what they think mixed is (much lighter, silky hair).
Also, an Asian friend of mine was crying because her boyfriend (blonde Viking type) told her he was chill if they had a girl but he really, really didnt want a son that loooked Asian 😮!?!!! So messed up (playing into the negative stereotypes of Asian men 😔)
The "prove your asian-ness" argument feels so gross to me. Personally, im full mexican n one of my childhood idols as a chicana was selena gomez, who is half white. I didnt relate much to her experience as a chicana bc she was predominantly raised by her white mother while i was raised by mexican immigrant parents, but that didnt make me view her as not being mexican or chicana enough. I looked up to her bc even if we had different experiences we still shared being chicanas n it was inspiring seeing a young talented chicana succeeding. Its been really cool seeing her further embrace her latina roots in the last couple years (very excited to watch her in emilia perez) but that wasnt necessary for me to consider her as being mexican/chicana/latina enough.
thats lovely for you, I wish more people were like you. that said this is definitely a phenomenon that affects mexicans and -particularly Mexican americans quite often. that we have terms like nopales and no sabo kids is indicative that the "not ___ enough" issue is still big for us. even with my parents having been born in jalisco im still reminded im not latina enough by weird gatekeepers all the time.
full "mexican" doesnt exist, mexican is a national identity, u can be black mexican, white mexican, metiza (mixed white n native), asian mexican, native/indio mexican etc;
dont want to devalue what u said bc of course, the experience of a americanized mexican american vs a mexican american whos parents are immigrants is going to be v different like ur example, however this is a v limited mindset that doesnt account for actual racism built into mexican n many latin american societies, where black n native latinos suffer, there is no one "mexican" that is full or not, the idea of "mexican" is built on the image created by the state that a mexican looks one way either a white mexican or metizo, theres no room for other mexicans in this mindset
Growing up, anyone trying to get me to "prove my Asianness" just got their ass kicked
@@NinnyHorseit definitely exists culturally though, if both of your parents can trace their lineage to Mexico then you are fully Mexican
Um Selena is what?
Shoutout to the wasians in here. I'm🇵🇭🇺🇸. I grew up in USA and Philippines so I have thought a lot about this topic. The feeling of not being entirely a part of one community. There's moments where I feel white and other moments where I feel Filipino. Then there's also the distinct Asian American culture that has its own experiences. Thanks for creating a video on this topic. I can relate to many of the comments here.
Interesting, in Pretty Little Liars, Troian Bellisario, who plays Spencer, is also a quarter black, but it’s pretty hard to tell, she just looks pretty Italian, so they could have actually had two mixed race characters on the show if they wanted. But they chose not to. I think Spencer in the books may have been pretty explicitly a WASP, but I’m not totally sure. I think they make her mother Italian or something similar in the show so she looks like Troian.
I stumbled upon this video in my recommended and I'm glad I clicked on it! I learned a lot!
As a wasian myself, it disheartens me to see how the youth in this generation seem to put so much emphasis in seeing someone who looks like them matter more than the character they play. Actors should be ambiguous in the sense that they can portray a wide array of characters- I don’t understand this demand to see the actors as physical reflections of the audience members themselves. I think a truly compelling story doesn’t need to have just a face that people can make up their own biased assertions about- whether an actor can portray the character in a heartfelt way seems more important to see in the world.
Loved seeing a video about Wasians as a Wasian in the US. I always felt othered growing up by both Koreans (My Dad is an immigrant) and white people (as I grew up in a small, religious, racist town). I have experienced such dysphoria around my looks because my dad is the asian, rather than my mom, and I look more white than anything but always wanted to look more asian than I did. I struggled a lot with being a "white looking Korean" and never knew any other Wasians growing up; there also wasn't a ton of representation in the media. Even now I never see Wasians that look like me or are even half Korean! It's also always interesting that even though I don't look very Korean, I have been heavily sexualized by people and praised for my "exotic" features. Thank you for covering this topic!
Kitty Song-Covey is white passing despite not being half Korean in real life but yeah I say we need more
i’m wasian with asian dad too !! so glad to find another person like me :) i also used to wish for both extremes of like can i please just either look like my mom or my dad. it just seemed easier :/ but now i see the value (most of the time) in looking uniquely the way i do. nobody else will ever look like me again !!!
@@kimcheesonjoo also I guess your dad moved/immigrated to where ur mom is from? Thats the same case with a guy I used to attend school with. I used to live in a town like urs and my high school had 3 Asians. All boys. 2/3 were mixed
@@kimcheesonjoo you should definitely move to experience more diversity
@@kimcheesonjoo we also have Isabel “Belly” Conklin from the summer I turned pretty
What a high quality video! I was so surprised to see you have less than 3k subs. Great work and good luck on your TH-cam journey!
As half Chinese and Australian, I really appreciated this video. I get so excited when seeing a Wasian (particularly half east asian) on screen or a wasian celebrity because it really feels like representation. Whenever I see a wasian celebrity, I make sure to follow their socials. I am proud to be Chinese but Chinese representation just does not feel the same. Of course Asian representation in Western film needs a lot of work but I do feel Wasian representation is also severely lacking since I am noticing more and more Wasians around me. I am sure all Wasians have felt 'the not belonging to either side' growing up. Community is so important and there was a Chinese and Asian community but I did not exactly fit there. I always wished for a Wasian community and to see people like me in media more. It really is amazing to see content that mentions and exposes that to a large audience.
Thank you for making this video! As a fellow Wasian, it's nice to feel validated in my thoughts on representation :D
casting lana condor is definitely related to her monoracialness but it may also be related to her being an adoptee. as an adoptee myself, i often felt my proximity to whiteness gave me a unique relationship to mixed asians in my life that i didnt have with full asians. i mean, all the talk about feeling too white to be asian and too asian to be white, having a racist parent, or having some kind of racial dysmorphia is very very common in adoptees just as it is in mixed asians. ofc, most ppl watching the film wouldnt know that or care to look it up. but considering the sequel series xokitty does include an adoptees story (the teacher) it wouldnt surprise me that jenny han did consider it maybe when she wrote TATB. and lana herself got into some controversy when she talked about all these criticisms and mentioned her own upbringing, the typical white savior narrative that a lot of asian adoptees in our communities criticize and infight about. and im sure the white execs and audiences and critics were relieved about it or something. in some ways, to me, lana fit right into this family with no other asian representation besides her sister. im sure her monoracialness didnt even phase her either, the problem is the audience doesnt pick up on these things i guess.
This is very interesting, because I'm Wasian and I"ve always related to adoptees for similar reasons! I definitely thought that must have been why they cast her to play that character
32:11 Laufey is half Cantonese (speaks Mandarin unfortunately due to Cantonese perception of Mandarin superiority), not half Japanese
Was going to mention this. Not sure where the idea that she’s half Japanese comes from
was super scared to open this video to the common "i hate wasians" narrative
glad to see a fellow wasian girlie talk about it in this way
I’m watching this as someone who is mostly white but marrying a Chinese American man. I am actually learning mandarin because we want to pass it down to our kids. I love my fiancés culture and heritage and I would be devastated if our children tried to push away their heritage. Being white and native myself however, I definitely can relate to feeling torn and not “____” enough.
It's really interesting because in Japan you also do have a similar phenomenon too with people who are half Japanese. The colorism is still portrayed here with people who are more of a pale complexion being seen as desirable, but at the same time I've seen more coverage with people who are half black and half Japanese such as Naomi Osaka or with tv hosts like Anthony. The representation the past five or six years has been getting better with people who are half, even in legacy media, but there's still a lot of work that needs to be done with the colorism aspect of it.
i would love to hear you talk about andi mack at some point. it was a disney show centered around a chinese american family with a wasian lead character. it also shows 3 generations of the women in the family with the grandmother being chinese and her daughter and granddaughter. them being asian/wasian doesn't directly affect the plot because they originally did colorblind casting but they definitely wrote their culture into the scripts and changed some aspects when they cast the leads they did. it's a great show overall and definitely very un-disney feeling especially for the time it came out and i would honestly just love more people to see it😭
Thank you for this video! I am half-Japanese American and have been exploring my mixed race identity for 37 years. I felt incredibly seen by Maya Erskine's character in PEN15, perhaps because we are the same age and both grew up in predominantly White spaces in California. The episode that she directed, "Yuki," starring her real-life mother, is one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen. Back in 2015, I was horrified when I found out that Emma Stone was playing a quarter Chinese character in Aloha. It seemed like too late in the game to have a White actor in yellowface in a major Hollywood film, but watching your video reminded me just how far we have to go, even in 2024. Thanks Emma!
I related a lot to what Ethan was saying at the end! As a Chinese Wasian who also doesn't speak the language (Cantonese), I found it hard to relate to other Chinese Americans as well as other White Americans. While young, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by many other Wasians who were in a similar boat as me (I actually had two friends who were both Chinese/White wasian with Asian dads), but as I grew up I grew out of those friendships for reasons unrelated to Wasianness. I ended up finding belonging in spaces other than Chinese and White spaces like how Ethan was talking about art and music.
Nowadays, most of my friends are Mexican. While I obviously did not go and seek out Mexican people to be friends with (LOL it just kinda happened), I think I ended up feeling like I didn't have to TRY to fit in with them. When I'm in predominantly White, Asian, or even Wasian spaces, I end up feeling like I'm not White/Asian/Wasian enough. When I'm with my friends now, I know that there's no expectation of me to be a certain way. My friends know I'm not Mexican and I know I'm not Mexican, so it's quite freeing to just be myself without feeling like I have to be MORE than what I am. Not sure if anyone else can relate.
11:01 Uh... didn't Spain occupy the Philippines for 300 year's or something? Doesn't that seem more relevant or am I missing something?
Yes! I focused on American colonization here because I’m specifically touching on American media, but Spain’s occupation of the Philippines is definitely very relevant to the discussion
@@emmachangkredlI think you made the right choice. I am an historian and anthropologist who specializes in the Philippines and it’s entirely arguable (in fact I would myself) that the US had a much more profound effect on the Philippines than Spain did.
Spain never contributed to a “Wasian” demographic (Spanish surnames in PH come from a law implemented in 1849 for census purposes), Filipinos never spoke Spanish in significant numbers, and Spain did not really leave a particularly large cultural mark or societal mark beyond Christianity and some music, food, etc. A large area of research in Filipino Psychology is the dissecting of this exact topic.
The US on the other hand created the education system, the political system, was instrumental in suppressing women’s rights, and created the environment that led to mass migration. So yes, despite the time being shorter I think you were 100% right to focus on the Americans.
The crazy thing about Kristen Kreuk's portrayal of Lana Lang in _Smallville_ is that they actually *did* have the perfect opportunity to make the character Wasian after the fact. And it could've been in a way that would have acknowledged the actress's heritage _and_ neatly ammend their initial refusal to have Clark's love interest be a POC.
Lana Lang is traditionally white in DC Comics (with fiery red hair to contrast Lois Lane's dark brunette hair). This adaptation of Lana is introduced as a brunette girl who is ostensibly the child of 2 (deceased) white patents, Lewis and Laura Lang. However, many seasons later, Lana is revealed to *not* be the biological child of Lewis. She learns that her mother had had an affair and that biological father was a man named Henry Small.
Unfortunately, despite having a brilliant opportunity baked into the story where they could make it canon that Lana was actually half-Asian like her actress (and, I guess, had simply been unknowingly white-passing this entire time) and walk back the show's initial decision to simply ignore the ethnicity of whom they'd cast ... Henry Small is *also* a white man 🤦🏿♂️
His family were the founders for whom the town of Smallville was named, so maybe that's what informed their decision to make him white (I suppose a small town in rural Kansas is unlikely to have been founded by Asian Americans? And of course, Small isn't an Asian surname.) But it's a pity that they wasted that chance. Especially since Lana learning that she is descended from the town's founders doesn't really affect her characterisation in any real way. It's more about the fact that her mom cheated and her dad wasn't her birth father.
I've been waiting years for this conversation 😭❤️ it's extra confusing for me when I look very racially ambiguous- I clearly don't look white, but also don't really look Asian either (I'm half German half Chinese). When someone asks what my heritage is and I tell them, they act even more confused so the imposter syndrome is very real to me about my own identity. My surname is also not a common german surname so people have no idea what my family origin is until they ask (unless they are also German and know right away). Even growing up, people would assume I was Australian Aboriginal, Latina or south sea Islander, or even some obscure places they'd never heard of before they'd finally realise I'm half Asian goddamn. People project anything they want onto you when you look so ambiguous, so it makes me also feel distant from my fellow Wasians
I'm monoracial Asian, and having grown up in Asia, I have essentially the opposite experience of Wasians. By the time I moved abroad, I already had a cultural identity. I didn't worry if I'd be perceived as "less Asian", because I was Asian regardless of what I did. I stick out like a sore thumb; it's clear that I'm not a native despite being a citizen (side note: I found it interesting that being "too Asian" was something I could be bullied for.. by other Asians). I feel this way towards mixed Asians too, regardless if they're Wasian or Blasian or another mix. You aren't one thing or the other, you're both. It always made a lot of sense to me that people can incorporate different cultures into their identity.
I do think it's important to have monoracial Asians in American mainstream media. However, it's important to not blame Wasians and mixed Asians in general for this problem; there are for sure some bad actors in any group, but the majority of mixed Asians are just trying to live their lives. Pushing for more nuanced and diversified representations of Asians, and promoting cultural exports from Asia could help imo.
Wow. That hour FLEW by. I just wrote out then deleted a legit essay, that's how much you made me think. Liked, subbed etc. Ty.
i was initially scared to watch this video but i’m glad i did. i tend to get really anxious when folks speak on my (or their common) experience but this made me feel very seen. specifically in my case as a japanese wasian, the JA community at large is very multiracial/multiethnic and is projected to only be more so. i’ve been finally getting more involved in the JA community and that has been incredibly rewarding. we asian americans and mixed americans are not a limbo state. highly recommend to everyone to seek out and build community with your people if you haven’t already ❤
The actor from Saved by the Bell Mark Paul gosseler, who played Zack Morris made his career from White passing. His father's, a white American man and mother is Indonesian and he never acknowledged his Asian heritage back in the day , It's like being mixed with Asian was a dirty Hollywood secret. He even was told to dye his hair blonde to look more like a white boy. He is a natural brunette.
As a wasian, I've noticed there's a factor to social identity that is based on just how you look. My sister is fully Japanese and I am half but she has received racial comments and attitudes all her life, while no one ever suspects that I'm asian unless I tell them because I don't have any of the obvious facial features. This has led to my introductory phrase being that I'm half Japanese, but there are times I feel like an imposter because I wasn't born in Japan, don't know the language, and my mom had already been somewhat Americanized by the time I was raised. However, I don't feel like I'm white either, despite my family's jokes. I don't see myself in American TV shows and movies and there was only one time that I saw someone who had a similar face to mine (Angela Aki).
On the topic of casting Henry Golding as a the male romantic lead, I think there is also something to be said about Asians idolising the looks of Waysians in Asia. For example, you see the cast of the first season of Asia's Next Top Model are mostly Waysians that look white instead of full Asians. In Asia you'll see a lot of commercials featuring Asians with white features instead of full Asians because that is considered beautiful in Asia.
All this to say on the topic of Henry Golding - unpopular opinion but I think his looks are not only palatable for the white audience but also the Asian audience despite the backlash
That’s only ever in Southeast Asian countries’ media. In countries like South Korea or China, the representation is 99.99% full Korean or 99.99% full Chinese. It’s very seldomly you see a half white-half Asian actor/actress there.
As a white person who's father is a unspecified white American and whose mother is a white Eastern European immigrant I really identify with the biracial experience, especially since I am always connected to whiteness, but as an ethnic white person I didn't feel connected to it. I recognize the white privilege I get from being white, and understand my identify as a white person in the greater global history, but the shared identity of American whiteness feels disconnected from me. I didn't grow up eating white people taco night and casseroles, I grew up eating fermented cabbage and and pigs feet in gelatin. I was teased at school for bringing ethnic food for lunch. Told it was smelly and gross. And when men found out I was Polish they always treated it like something exotic, and often listed all the Polish women they had dated in the past line I am the latest in a collection. I am Polish to Americans. But to Poles I am American. My Polish has a strong accent, and though I can read and write I am not knowledgeable of current slang. I am too Polish for America and too American for Poland. So despite being white, and having white privilege, I also connect strongly with the Wasian experience.
Not just wasian experience, definitely a lot of half white mixed children. I am blasian, and I identify with the Asian part of the mix like in this video, but the half black part is a WHOLE can of worms that would need its own video.
Why are most wasians have white dads genuine question 😭
White men having an Asian fetish
im filipino and some white men go here to find a “young subservient asian wife” but that’s generalizing them.
because Asian women gravitate towards and mostly prefer white men
@@lerinorthcott did you mean women who immigrate out of poorer countries and work for better lives in more stable countries at least?
because a lot of east and SE asian men are extremely sexist and the probability of an asian men getting with a foreign, read western, woman is smaller than an east or SE asian woman getting with a foreign man.
this was an amazing video and so thought provoking! as a wasian myself, you brought up so many things i have been feeling but didn’t have the words to describe. that part about how most wasian representation creates characters that have been so raised in white culture they can basically get away with writing them as White with a Little bit of something making them different was so interesting and made me realize why those characters often feel unrelatable.
i see why it was criticized the way that the characters in to all the boys were written, but if anything i can relate to that too. that latching onto any asian parts of you you have, almost being Overtly loud abt it in an effort to just feel Seen as what you Know you are but haven’t been able to experience culturally. and then going to the asian country you’re from and still feeling like a tourist.
i think the one time ive really seen myself and the wasian experience represented was with maya in pen15. i watched it a while ago, so i can’t recall specifics, but i remember crying and feeling so seen. also, just the fact she is raised mostly by her japanese mother who the actress’ own mom played.
overall!!! amazing video!!! so grateful this popped up on my feed!
22:54 what you describe about going to China is part of what I am experiencing coming to Africa as an AfroCaribbean. Thank you for the synthesis of words. 😊