Words matter. These are the best Asian Quotes from famous people such as Nydia Velazquez, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, Taslima Nasrin, Jessica Henwick, Mark Frost, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Nationally, more than one million Asian American entrepreneurs create jobs in their communities, helping fuel local commerce. In New York, we have seen firsthand how this community has helped drive our economy forward through hard work and ingenuity.
Many still believe that conducting political and economic reforms at the same time is not an Asian way. But this is a fairy-tale. We broke that old stereotype by reforming our political, economic and social systems concurrently since 1990.
The focus of my research is how secular movements originated in West Asian countries and subsequently changed to pan-Islamic movements. The role of Western countries in this aspect is also a part of the research.
When I came on to ‘Iron Fist,’ it was really Colleen Wing that sold it for me. I thought it was a good opportunity to see a really strong female Asian American.
I would love to see an Asian American superhero.
As a boy, I found myself drawn to Arthurian legends, and then to Celtic mythology, and then further east into the mysticism of Asian religions.
Having played in U.S.A. in 1994, in France in 1998, as well as the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan – the first on the Asian continent – I have witnessed the excitement and passion unleashed in those different parts of the world.
To follow my meal, I’d drink a glass of my uncle’s homemade apricot schnapps. He puts it in beautiful glass bottles and sells it at his local market in Austria. You don’t normally drink with Asian food, so this would be a fitting end to the meal.
There was always a struggle with being Asian and not being Asian enough. It’s going to be down to me to own my race.
I learned that instead of relying on and imitating American music, there is a better chance for an Asian artist to succeed if he or she follows his or her own culture.
Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.
During my time, squash was not even part of Asian or Commonwealth Games. Considering the dominance of Jansher Khan and I in the ’80s and ’90s, it goes without saying that Pakistan would have bagged a plethora of medals through us at these games. And yes, the ultimate prize would have been an Olympic gold.
I’m Asian. Anything Boba please.
If you are brown, black, Asian, or anything other than an English-speaking, highly-trained technician, the Republican Party doesn’t want you here.
I’ve grown up with racism my entire life. I’ve been bullied, sent to the hospital, beat up, I’ve been called a Chink and a Gook. Every single racial slur an Asian person can be called, I’ve been called it.
I’m one of not even a handful of British Asian popstars who are maninstream. Of course I was always tagged as British Asian singer Jay Sean as opposed to pop R’n’B singer Jay Sean.
My new mission is, and I’ve said this to the White House, I want the Buy America to be real. I want the Buy America to be by small businesses, African American businesses, Latino and Asian, but in particular our African American businesses who heretofore couldn’t even find the front door of government contracts.
I am ambitious, and I’m excited for my career to grow, and I do want to represent the Asian community and the Filipino community.
It was quite strange that people were saying I wasn’t Asian enough. It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re not Asian enough to play an Asian role.’ So what does that mean for people who come from mixed heritage? I grew up in Asia; I’m Malaysian.
People don’t think that bread is part of Asian culture or Asian food culture, but it’s quite prevalent in Northern China, and you see it throughout Japan and as you go to Taiwan.
Admittedly, no Republican can get elected statewide in California anymore, but nor can what we think of as, nationally, the Democratic Party. There are no Joe Bidens running; it is not working-class Democrats vs. liberal Democrats, or whatever their division is these days. It is Hispanic Democrats vs. Asian Democrats.
OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me.
Thailand was never a European colony, so even though the city is very Western on the surface, deep down it’s very Asian. It’s quite enigmatic, and I like that. I can’t get to the bottom of Bangkok, and I never will.
Being an Asian person on SNL,’ when people are like, ‘Why did it take so long?’ It’s sort of a question that doesn’t fully understand the idea that there is no developmental experiential process for a queer Asian person to get into comedy in a way that feels inevitable.
In British TV, if there is an Asian character, there usually has to be a reason for them to be Asian, whereas in America, you have a lot more roles where the person just happens to be Asian.
For once in my life, I wanted to flaunt my Asian side instead of hiding it to fit as somebody else… ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ made me want to get in touch with my roots, instead of running away from them.
I’ve always been very passionate about trying to have Asian-Americans or Asian faces be more prominent in mainstream media.
A lot of Asian girls love being basic because it’s safe. But the thing is, a lot of my fans are those girls, and they want to be bolder, but there’s no one they could look up to and be like, ‘It’s OK to be that way.’
We cannot say that Asian Champions Trophy is that easy a contest.
In this context, the current recovery in the Japanese economy is taking place in tandem with the growing interdependence with the rest of the world, particularly with the other East Asian economies.
Not only do I not want to be stereotyped as this Asian girl who fights – gee, what a wonder – but also I have more to offer than that.
I’m half white, half Asian. I think of myself as hybrid. People usually think I’m Latina when they meet me. That’s what made me learn Spanish.
I saw an opportunity to use a restaurant to identify a lot of my issues and concerns with being an immigrant in America, and Asian in America, and a young person in America.
I feel like it’s a bit of a misconception that all actors have to be expert martial artists if they’re Asian.
I’ve read some amazingly derogatory things about me over the years and I’ve sat there and thought: if you replaced ‘ginger’ with ‘black’ or even ‘Asian,’ you’d be up in front of a judge.
Make your plate colorful. A lot of Asian countries make it a point of having five colors present on every dish, which leads to eating nutrient-rich foods.
I am very honored to be named Asian Player of the Year.
Definitive statements get people riled up, which is why I usually moonwalk away from them, but here goes nothing: You cant eat a South Asian meal without raita. Raita is the savory yogurt condiment thats served alongside everything – from Pakistani lamb biryani to Bengali shami kebabs and South Indian okra stir-fry.
I’ve been lucky to come up when there’s such a huge explosion of women, and especially Asian women, in music.
I don’t want to be boxed in or looked at a certain way, as in, ‘Yo, he’s an Asian rapper.’
I remember winning the Asian Cup in 2004 in China, coming through so much adversity including a final against the hosts. We won 3-1 and it was a wonderful competition, which we won by playing great football.
Everyone looks me and says, ‘I’m not going to let that Asian kid embarrass me. I’m going to go at him.’ That’s how it’s been my whole life.
The first initial feeling, at least for me, was to go out and play well and hopefully win and have the Asian community be even more proud.
The Asian woman in Hollywood movies has usually been one of two extremes – totally submissive or totally ruthless. In either case her primary function has been decorative.
Wong Kar-wai and Ang Lee are two Asian directors I’m really fond of.
Whatever ethnicity you are, yes, absolutely you have to be proud of who you are man. I am really really proud to be Asian, I got to say.
Years ago, there was one Asian person in a soap and the entire Asian acting community was going for that role. Now, you can find a few different Asian people, and their character isn’t entirely based on their religion or culture: they just happen to be in a soap.
I believe Indian hockey itself is going through a major phase of transformation. We set our sight on winning the gold medal at the Asian Games. We have achieved that.
We have many different kinds of global centers like the global business center or the special center for Mongolian and Central Asian residents in Seoul.
South-east Asian salads are a great balance of salty, sweet-sour and spicy. Its important to have both pork and seafood, but you can vary the seafood from prawns and squid to crab meat or even small pieces of firm fish such as monkfish, John Dory or gurnard.
My wife and I were worried, when we had our firstborn, about how he was going to think of himself in a mostly white neighborhood. Particularly Asian men, I feel, we suffer more than Asian women, because we’re told we’re not worth anything in general.
I’d heard a lot of Asian people were rooting for me, but I had no idea. I was stunned. They were… impassioned, especially compared to Japan. I couldn’t even have anticipated that kind of welcome.
My dad, of course, like a lot of Asian parents, wanted me to be an engineer or doctor and never could understand why I would want to be a lawyer. And then, when I first said I wanted to run for office, he thought that was absolutely insane.
I really dislike the fact that Asian males are constantly emasculated, whether it’s American TV or films. You see it all the time, and it’s so weird that they don’t see sexuality in Asian men.
The Chinese Student Association at Cornell put together their own play. It was all Asian people in the cast except for me, because they wanted to do a couple of scenes about an interracial relationship. I was the only non-Asian person on stage; the entire audience was Asian apart from my 10 friends that showed up.
In Harlem, I got all my black friends. But when I go downtown, I got black, white, Asian, Indian friends. There’s no borders, no barriers.
There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.
Something I love about ‘Teen Wolf’ is that my character is written in as just a normal girl. She could have been any ethnicity; she doesn’t have to be Asian.
Maybe all teenagers feel like they don’t fit in. I never felt like a cool kid. I remember being bullied for being Asian.
We have scaled the heights of Mount Everest, dominated the Southeast Asian games, we have won international beauty titles, and of course punched our way to triumph in the boxing world. Our people compete and win every day in every imaginable job throughout the world.
I have no intention of ever writing beauty tips on how to make an African-American nose look slimmer or Asian eyes look bigger. That’s degrading. Asian eyes are what’s beautiful about you and what makes you different.
Almost anyone can give me the willies. Man or woman, Asian, black or white, young or old.
The first set I ended up on was Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Pacific Rim’ that was shooting in Toronto and they needed a bunch of Asian extras, and for some reason they put their ad on Craigslist.
I’m extremely proud I’m an Asian female and I’m on television, because there aren’t many of us.
America is a country formed by diverse communities from different countries. Overall, the country is very hospitable and gives opportunities to grow. Saying that, I’d also say I’m not a ‘white’ immigrant; a South Asian’s experience is different than, say, a European immigrant’s.
In elementary school, I identified more with my Asian side. I had a lot of Korean friends, and then, once middle school hit, it was a little more diverse.
When ‘Joy Luck Club’ came out, I kind of became a role model for the Asian acting community. I started to talk at colleges and emcee charity things. I’m much more connected to my sense of being Asian now.
What we had on was BBC Asian Network and Bollywood sound-tracks – they were my reference points. But of course, where I grew up, I was one of two Indian guys in my school, and I didn’t really have anyone else to share that with.
The trauma of South Asian people escapes the confines of our own times. We’re not just healing from what’s been inflicted onto us as children… it is generations of pain embedded into our souls.
The Asian male has an interesting history as far as Western appropriation. At one point, we were completely sexless Chinamen building the railroads. Then, World War II came around, and it was like, Asian guys are coming after the white women. We became a menace for a second.
Asian American success is often presented as something of a horror – robotic, unfeeling machines psychotically hellbent on excelling, products of abusive tiger parenting who care only about test scores and perfection, driven to succeed without even knowing why.
There are aspects of Asian culture in my work, but it’s really rooted in an American experience – transcendentalism, ’60s counterculture, punk rock.
We need someone who will stand up and speak up and speak out for the people who need help, for people who are being discriminated against. And it doesn’t matter whether they are black or white, Latino, Asian or Native American, whether they are straight or gay, Muslim, Christian, or Jews.
Eventually we got to a point where ‘Riverdale’ came along, and it was a character that was originally written white, and I saw this as an opportunity to take a classic American character and make them Asian.
Sometimes it’s not even a role that’s specifically written for a woman. It could be a role written for a white man or Asian man, or Latino. If it’s something that I feel I could do well, I go after it. Especially if it’s nothing that has to be gender or race specific, I’m all over it.
I’m definitely more Asian than a lot of people who have never been to Asia. But by blood and by race, they instantly say I deserve to be Asian. I’ve worked really hard to be Asian, and I think I’m Asian enough.
‘The Green Turtle’ was created in the 1940s by a cartoonist named Chu Hing, one of the first Asian Americans to work in the American comic book industry.
As an Asian-American actor, I believe it is important to never settle for the status quo. I feel a responsibility to do everything in my power to create positive perceptions of Asian Americans through my work.
My parents kept the best aspects of the Asian culture, and they Americanized the family. My mother was a great example for me. She was a working mother with a good career.
America is the NBA of culture. So to have Asian people in the biggest entertainment market in the world, in Hollywood, is cool.
There needs to be more film directors of colour. They bandy about the word ‘diversity’ a lot, but when I say ‘of colour,’ I mean Asian, black – I mean people of all colour. We need to have those voices given the opportunity, not told that their films will not be distributed or will not sell well abroad.
The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America – they’re black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.
I want to show people out there that there’s such a huge spectrum of people within the queer and Asian community.
I became an immigrant, civil and human rights advocate, then the first South Asian elected to the Washington State Legislature and the only woman of color in the Washington State Senate, and then was elected in 2016 to the United States Congress.
From my experience, I would say no: actors of East Asian descent don’t get the opportunities white actors do. I know that’s inherently a problem in a country that produces a lot of period drama, but I have to fight so hard to get parts that don’t have something to do with China.
Australia has a thing where apparently it’s fine for me to dress up as an Asian woman. No one has questioned that.
When I won gold medals in both the 200m and 400m events at the 1958 Asian Games, the then chief of army staff, General K.S. Thimayya, announced my promotion as a junior commissioned officer.
Asian fans chase me and shout; it is different in England.
I always tell Asian actors, especially Filipinos wanting to break into Hollywood, to study, study and study and show their best. I haven’t stopped studying. There’s an abundance of roles, and all you have to do is prove to them that you are good for the role.
I majored in Chinese. I was never really good at Chinese but I really, really benefited from having been exposed to Asian philosophy early in my life.
The Asian nation’s oil demand is expected to grow this year by 800,000 barrels per day and represents more than one-third of the total growth in global demand, according to the Energy Information Agency.
The direct investment of Japanese businesses to East Asian economies accelerates the reallocation of their production bases. Consequently, between Japan and the other East Asian countries, both exports and imports are growing substantially.
I feel like, of course, Houston has Asian fans and Japanese fans, and Asian fans live all over the place.
I was the first South Asian female to do comedy videos on YouTube. But at the same time, all races face their barriers, and I’ve learned through YouTube, if it’s not race, it will be sexism, if it’s not sexism, it will be homophobia. It will always be something, and all voices should be heard.
I do really love New York. I feel like there are more Asian restaurants. Philly has a sick food scene, I don’t want to diss it at all. But New York is so much bigger and there are more options.
I grew up a skinny Asian kid who was often ignored or picked on. It stuck with me and branded my soul. As I grew up, I tried to stick up for whoever seemed excluded or marginalized.
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month provides us all an opportunity to reflect upon this community’s many contributions and to celebrate its bright future.
I want to represent Asian women.
With more Asian players on the tennis circuit, there’s more awareness about tennis and knowledge about various tennis tournaments.
I go to castings and see several black and Asian girls, then I get to the show and look around there’s just me and maybe one other coloured face.
Growing up, my favorite movies were ‘Forrest Gump,’ ‘Shawshank Redemption,’ ‘Gladiator’ – none of them really had Asian leading men.
I learned my weaknesses at the Asian Games and other competitions where I lost. My guard was down.
Our first and main focus will continue to be producing content for a huge domestic market and the second largest migrant population in the world, which is south Asian.
Being Asian in this business is something you have to consider, because sometimes people aren’t as open. They’ll say, I can’t see you with a Caucasian person.
I always tend to gravitate toward the idea of things being human: that this isolation I feel as an Asian American, even though it’s real, other people have it too in their own way.
Yes, we become stronger when black and whites, Latino, Asian American, Native American, when all of us stand together.
My parents are Jamaican immigrants and both have a multiracial background. They’re Jamaican but my genetic makeup is West African, European, Asian.
First of all, Asian representation hardly exists to begin with.
Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.
I am very happy that I proved Asian players can deal with the high levels of European football.
My dad has blond hair, my grandmother has blue eyes. My daughter has blue eyes and blond hair. So it is pretty funny to me that I’m so heavily identified as an Asian person.
China and the Asian territory is an incredible opportunity. We spend a lot of time looking at it, looking for the right partners.
It’s always fun to see faces that are either familiar or resemble yours. I was fascinated by movies like ‘Big Trouble in Little China’ growing up because there were so many Asian people in it! The same with ‘Year of the Dragon’ or ‘The Last Emperor’. It was just so great to see so many Asian actors working.
And people are always saying he deceptively quick, deceptively athletic, and I don’t know if that’s just because I’m Asian or what it is, but obviously there’s going to be stereotypes that you have to fight.
I grew up in a steel town, and at the time, when I was a kid, there weren’t any Asian families in the area. So it had its challenges.
Hollywood likes to put actors in boxes, and it likes to put Asian actors in really small boxes.
My family was one of the few South Asian families in my community in Illinois. Growing up in the ’80s, I remember going to the K-Mart with my mom, when she was wearing her sari, and she’d get made fun of. People would ask my mother, ‘Were you born with that dot on your head?’
In America, people think being South Asian is still kind of exotic. When you go outside New York and Chicago and L.A., there are people who have never tried Indian food… they’ve never even tasted it!
It’d be nice if Asian actors could be perceived as profitable, which is the bottom line. We’re perceived as not mattering much fiscally.
Quite honestly, I never thought it would be possible for Asians to make it in the States. But now I feel like it’s totally changing. You see so many Asian celebrities now, and more and more of them are taking bigger roles in movies. I feel like everything has changed.
The majority of my blood is Asian.
Holding those two identities of being gay and Asian have, I guess, made my skin a little thicker.
I have Asian friends – second generation – and I am the worst in terms of being in touch with my heritage.
I don’t want to be defined as the Asian leading man. I want to be the leading man. Henry Golding.
American audiences and European and Asian audiences are so different.
I went to an exhibition at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum about Shanghai, about how courtesans had been influential in bringing western culture to Shanghai. I bought a book and in it saw this striking group of women in a photograph called ‘The Ten Beauties of Shanghai’.
The confidence is really driven by the woman – whether she can have the confidence that there will be enough earning or income to finance all the domestic spending – but also by the middle-income class, which for many Asian countries has become the growth power for the economy.
The Sixth Sense is not a good white film. Insomnia is not a good white film. They’re just good films. So why we can’t we have good films that happen to have black people, or Asian, or Latino, or any other minority group in them?
We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.
Asian parents generally tend to channel their children, especially their daughters, into studying and not sport.
I always think it’s really hard if you are Asian or Chinese to be really in Hollywood. There are not so many really great characters for you.
When I first arrived in Los Angeles from New York in 2004 to try to break into television, I couldn’t believe how segregated it was – how many neighborhoods were nearly all-white or all-black or -Asian or -Latino.
Drag Race’ was, like, my outlet and finally being able to see myself in television and that was through Manila Luzon, who was a ‘Drag Race’ contestant. Manila was the first Asian queer person that I ever saw on mainstream media and ‘Drag Race’ really did that for me.
Ang Lee and ‘Hulk,’ for instance – a movie about a guy with different-colored skin and a lot of repressed rage? Sounds like the perfect film for an Asian, to me!
A brief visit to Nepal started my insatiable love for Asian art.
I don’t know that there’s a division between American and British, European, South American, Asian sensibilities when it comes to rock n’ roll or, really, any form of music. Songs travel, and people take them into their lives in all different kinds of unpredictable and really untraceable ways.
The Asian airlines have the best wine programs.
Red Bull have always been very good at nurturing young talent – Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo are products of that – and it is important with Asian talent that people keep investing in it. There’s a massive pool of people, for sure, and the next Sebastian Vettel is out there somewhere.
Pakistan is the first South Asian country to sign a free trade agreement and currency swap agreement with China.
There was never a point where I thought, ‘I’m going to do something Asian American.’
The Panda mission really speaks to our philosophy. It is, ‘Deliver exceptional Asian dining experiences by building an organization where people are inspired to better their lives.’ I’m talking about everyone who works at Panda. They’re inspired to better their own lives.
I’m not trying to disrespect anybody by saying this – I’m not sure I feel any interaction with Asian America in any collective sense. – It’s like, when you’re telling me this right now, my reaction is, Really? Asian America knows about me?
When depicting Asian people in movies, books, and television or as historical figures, it’s more important to humanize them and give them all of the dimensions of humanity, and that includes sexuality. Ascribe the human the full range of human qualities.
It was great to be able to play a hero in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ in a film industry where Asian actors are often limited to playing a villain.
I want to see more Asian. I want to see more Latin. I want more Indian. There’s more than Mindy Kaling out there, guys! There’s more than Bai Ling.
My kind of cooking is not a single style – French, Asian, Australasian or British – it’s not modern, old-fashioned or classic; it’s a mix of all these things. And at its core is a boy who loved to cook with his Nanna.
Just because there’s one Asian American superhero in the MCU, it does not by any means imply that our fight is finished right there.
It’s very hard, you know, for an Asian actor to be in a prime-time television series.
A China that trades extensively with the U.S. and its Asian neighbors will think twice before it pursues any policy that would place those relationships at risk. Likewise, trade between India and Pakistan could contribute to the normalization of ties between these long-estranged neighbors.
The Asian Championships are like the Olympics because the top 6 or top 8 are already here.
I think screenwriters, I think editors in the cutting room – they have a lot of responsibility that we don’t think about, but they could cut the coverage of an Asian person to focus on a white person because, unknowingly, they think that white person has more to say or is more interesting.
Asia has a great future; we here in the Philippines will benefit from this Asian prosperity.
I know Asian actors out there won’t even audition for a role that have an accent. But for me, I was the kid with an accent. I still have an accent to some degree.
My dad and I would go to Blockbuster and look for Asian films and we could never find any. If we saw a Jackie Chan movie we would watch that because it was so comforting to see a face similar to ours.
They were concerned about the racial issue. They thought it was not a safe issue to go Asian, unfortunately.
I do not want to name any individual names, but I felt like when I was working in Hollywood, there were some fellow colleagues of mine who didn’t even look me in the eyes because I was Asian.
If you haven’t heard my story, my mom is full Korean, and my dad is Caucasian. Kids in kindergarten would make fun of me for being Asian, and when you’re that age, you don’t know really how to process that; the way you take that is, ‘Who I am isn’t good enough.’
Geologists are rapidly becoming convinced that the mammals spread from their central Asian point of origin largely because of great variations in climate.
I make American films for American audiences and Asian films for Asian audiences.
Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don’t think a woman should only write about women.
I know about lots of things that have nothing to do with being Asian, that you would never guess from looking at me. I know all about musical theater. I could go on ‘Jeopardy!’ and knock off the whole Broadway show tunes category. Also the whole Bible stories category.
I wanted to show that Asian players could make it in Europe. But it was far more important for me just to become a better player. That is why I came to Europe from Asia.
I’m short. I’m so Asian.
Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.
Most people say that Asian or female artists should be sexy in America, but I don’t think that I have to be like that. I have a tomboy style. My choreography is not that way. So, I want to focus on my music style to match the choreography, which is really cool. No girls can dance those moves. I try to make them really fresh.
I’m the first South Asian woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.
In my immigrant family we revered Margaret Thatcher. She was aspiration personified. She understood what it took to smash the glass ceiling. She shared our values and she empathised with our experiences. She really was the first British Asian Prime Minister.
One of the things I like about comedy in general is that it affords Asian Americans the opportunity to not be noble.
It was a dark period of my life when William Hung was the most famous Asian man.
The truth is that Asian people have been targeted and discriminated against for far, far longer than COVID has been around.
Winning the Asian Games is about the most important thing I have achieved for my country, and seeing the delight on the faces of the people back home is something that will last with me forever.
Maybe my job on this planet is to make the Asian accent sexy.
Normally, people think of Asian women as timid, but I think I’m very strong.
I love ‘The Office.’ I’m in the premiere, and I’m maybe gonna shoot another episode this season, but I’ve been there since the very beginning, so when I found out this is the last year – I am a good Asian kid who was an A student – I wish I could be there to the end to see things through.
For a while, I was feeling like I was always playing characters that weren’t specifically Korean or specifically Asian, even – that they were characters who were originally written white, and then they would cast me. And I used to consider that a badge of honor because that meant I had avoided stereotypes.
I want to be a representative and be a role model for the Asian American community.
I want people to look at me in the future and feel that there’s this Asian hip-hop artist who’s fresh and hot.
There’s not enough black films out there. There’s not enough Latin films, or films that have an Asian, Indian or Middle Eastern lead. The list goes on and on.
We recognize Taiwan as the beacon of Asian democracy.
You can’t ignore the Asian and Hispanic populations in L.A. We can let audiences know independent film is not just about white men.
My brother often complains to me about the ‘angry Asian male’ in the United States. As a female, I haven’t encountered this, but Asian-American men are angry. They’re angry because, for so many years, they’ve been neglected as sex symbols. Asian women have it much easier, I think; we’re accepted into various circles.
My favorite way to cook is to look in my cabinets and see what I have. That’s the most fun. ‘I don’t have tomatoes, but I have this chili-garlic sauce from the Asian grocery store. Let’s throw that in there and see how it affects my beef barley soup!’
Even if they’re not Asian or super rich… everyone has a nagging mother. Everyone has that obnoxious uncle, or that cousin who’s a bit too snobby.
Asian food is amazing. I love a good Milo Dinosaur, bubble tea, and things like that.
As the Chinese girl, you don’t fit in with anybody. It wasn’t a large Chinese-American population, so I didn’t grow up having a community of Asian friends. Even when there were Asian people, we sort of existed on our own.
A generation has witnessed the fight for racial justice from the front lines: Asian Americans have been paying attention, and they are ready to put up a fight.
Prague is not rife in Asian culture.
A lot of times I go to a comedy show, I sit there and wait for the comedian to run out of ideas and look at me and make an Asian joke. Which is very different for blacks and Latinos. You can’t say certain things because everyone is cognizant of when things are and should be offensive. Asians don’t have that luxury.
After I made ‘Better Luck Tomorrow’ and started taking meetings in Hollywood, I quickly learned that Asian Americans weren’t even in the conversation as a minority, since there wasn’t even a significant enough audience, and especially an audience for Asian American content.
Up until the time I was cast in ‘Star Trek,’ the roles were pretty shallow – thin, stereotyped, one-dimensional roles. I knew this character was a breakthrough role, certainly for me as an individual actor but also for the image of an Asian character: no accent, a member of the elite leadership team.
I think the Japanese love young, tannic red wines much more than most Americans do. Perhaps it is because Asians have a great fondness for tea, and tea is a very tannic beverage. Therefore a young, tannic red wine is something familiar to an Asian palate.
California is an easy place to be an Asian woman engineer.
If you take a step back, you realize that the TV landscape really has been… There have been some amazing shows in terms of representation, but not for Asian people.
I didn’t see myself in Jia Jhangke or Wong Kar-Wai films. Those are Asian filmmakers, and I very much am an American filmmaker.
You know, we never grew up with Asian American role models in the entertainment industry, unfortunately. I’d never seen an Asian face singing on TV.
People’s view of exotic or Asian women are changing. It’s much nicer to hear ‘She’s pretty’ than ‘She’s pretty – for an Asian woman.’
There are 13 Asian countries that still have elephants, and Elephant Family is looking to invest in further projects that will be the most critical for saving elephants while there is still time.
When I sold my first middle-grade novel in 2005, it wasn’t that common to put an author photo on the back flap, but 24-year-old Korean-American me insisted. I wanted Asian girls to see my face. And more than that, I wanted them to see what is possible.
The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.
There’s some humility that has to be constant. And if I ever put pressure on myself to represent in any meaningful way for Asian people, then that would just get in my way in terms of thinking that I am destined to speak on behalf of multiple people.
I don’t know why people feel the need to do this to me, but my friend asked my dad, ‘Aren’t your proud of Jimmy now that he’s a successful actor?’ And my dad was like, ‘No, not really. I wish he was a scientist.’ I guess scientist is more noble in the Asian culture.
But everyone comes to Hollywood hoping to get a role people are going to remember them for, and I get girls saying I was their first crush, or Asian guys saying Rufio was the first time they saw an Asian kid on-screen that wasn’t nerdy or stereotypical, so I was lucky the character that resonated was cool.
They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.
I think Asian men are beautiful.
We sincerely hope that south Asian countries will respect and live in amity with each other, and achieve common development, and that south Asia will enjoy peace, stability and prosperity.
I accept you, and you get the same respect from me whether you are black, white, gay straight, Asian, bisexual, Australian, tall, fat, whatever it is. We are all people, and I look at the people of the world the same way, as my brothers and sisters.
One of the great joys of my life post-‘Friends’ has been being approached by Asian women who have told me how much it meant to see an Asian face on their TV screen when they were growing up.
If Asian America exists, it is because of systemic racism.
I wasn’t treated different to anyone else, I just performed on the pitch and that helped my selection for the ‘Development England’ side at the age of 13 and I had no extra boundaries just because I was Asian.
I know when I was growing up in New York, whenever I turned on the television, I never saw a face that looked like me. Whenever there was an Asian person on television, it would be a huge event, me calling to my older sister ‘There’s an Asian person on television!’ It was unheard of back then.
I’m not the Asian kid of ‘Riverdale;’ I’m Reggie, and I just happen to be Chinese.
There are many things to do to make Asian tennis strong.
Hong Kong is a good fashion city. The interest is enormous. There’s good potential in the Asian market.
As an ethnically Asian Muslim, born and bred in this country, I am British. I have never felt a conflict between my country, my religion, and my background.
Watching boxer Dingko Singh’s performance at the Asian Games, Bangkok, where he won gold, was the defining moment. I was 15 and enjoyed sports more than anything else. Singh’s performance changed my life and inspired me to follow boxing.
We all want to be identified as someone cool, and I have struggled with repping where I’m from and my heritage before. It’s part of growing pains. But when people see me being proud of what I am – and they are what I am too – it makes them proud. That’s why I try to represent my Asian and my black side.
I want to continue to broaden expectations of what an Asian can be.
Southeast Asia food uses many different types of spices which are quite new to me, like the curry leaves which I saw at the Kreta Ayer wet market in Chinatown. With such spices used in cooking, this usually imparts a strong aroma to Southeast Asian food, which appeals to the senses.
When you’re the only Asian in the room, the last thing you want to do is to point out you’re Asian. And be the Asian dude.
I’ve always been a target. Everyone looks me and says, ‘I’m not going to let that Asian kid embarrass me. I’m going to go at him.’ That’s how it’s been my whole life.
If you walk into any magazine store, I guarantee that nine out of 10 covers will feature white, blonde, blue-eyed, slim women because that’s still the ideal of beauty. When a black or Asian figure shows up in a fashion magazine, she’s the exception, not the rule.
I always assumed that my otherness was a curse – that I would be held back by my Asian and queer identities.
I make a Bloody Mary at home with a dash of fish sauce, a little bit of coconut, and some lime juice. It gives the cocktail some South Asian flair.
I never grew up thinking, ‘Why aren’t there any Asians?’ But then Lucy Liu came on, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, she is my favorite.’ I was nothing like her, but I just loved her because she was the only Asian I saw.
People are racist about redheads in a way they’d never dare to be about black or Asian people.
It does feel like we get to just carte blanche create a superhero origin story for 2021, for this day and age, that is told through a distinctly Asian American lens.
One of my favorite cities is Tokyo because of sushi, and Asian food in general, but then also the way Tokyo operates, because it’s so clean, and there’s space for a lot of variety of stores.
There were no Asian lads boxing when I started.
A lot of ‘Star Wars’ fans who are specifically Asian never had a character they could dress up like, or they would, and people would always call them ‘Asian Rey’ or ‘Asian fill-in-the-blank.’
The story of the British empire helps to explain the roots of most British people: white, black, and Asian.
Parts for Asians are hard enough to get, and if Tee, which sounds kind of generically Asian, helps me get roles, so be it.
In many Asian households, to not go on to higher education, that’s like a big no-no. I know my parents’ discouragement was for my own protection, and I’m really close to them now, but they didn’t understand that there is value in this. That’s because they didn’t know.
There is something missing in Asian America. They’re missing people to tell them, ‘It’s okay to be who you are – you belong. Just be unapologetically you; you’re not less than anybody else.’
I don’t want to be the Asian filmmaker; I just want to be a filmmaker. I want to be Spielberg. I want to be Tim Burton.
I don’t want to have people brought in simply because they are black or Asian.
I hope K-dramas can make inroads into more Asian countries.
When the football world is ready to adhere to the diversity codes so that BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) communities, plus women, get the opportunities in football then I’ll see that as a step forward.
In the States I might be an Asian face, look different from everyone else in TV and in music, but in Korea I look like everybody else, in Asia I look like everybody else.
You could say mixed-race Eurasians have the exact same struggles as a character like Rachel Chu has had: not feeling at home in supposedly their motherland; not being white enough; not being Asian enough.
In the past, Japan through its colonial rule and aggression caused tremendous damage and suffering for the people of many countries, particularly those of Asian nations.
The great problem there is we have to have the cooperation of those other Asian countries.
Asian cultures… place great value on avoiding open expression of disagreement and conflict because they emphasize harmony.
If I was to go around as a white woman, a white man, an Asian woman, an Asian man… the world would just respond to you so differently because of your outward form, right?
We are Asian champions, but we cannot take chances.
Being South Asian in the U.K. is like being Latino in the U.S., I would guess. It’s a bit more hood. You see things; things happen. I was bouncing between worlds. You’re acting from a very early age, when you have to code-switch like that. I’m a hybrid, a mongrel. I think many people live that life.
I’m so proud to be an Asian and just knowing that if we think of something, we’re gonna have the opportunity to be the best version of ourselves and be the best.
Chinese sausage, which is widely available from Asian grocers and online, is sweet, rich, and enticingly smoky. I add it to steamed rice with strips of omelette and a few baby veg stir-fried with soy.
So in Asia I want to make – I want to succeed to make a model of what success, practicing democracy, and market economy. Then that will give a good influence over Asian countries.
People have accused me of bleaching my skin, of getting a nose job. They squint at my mom, like, ‘I didn’t know Wendy was Asian.’ I am black all day, honey pie. I am black and very proud.
The fact that I am a Filipino actor playing a Filipino role is crazy. Filipinos are the second largest Asian minority in the United States, and we’re hardly represented in the media and on television.
Thinking back on it, I just really didn’t have very many role models to look up to when it came to Asian actresses. And in that way, when I would see an Asian onscreen, it would be a secondary-type thing, and that’s kind of how I ended up viewing myself in the world: as secondary.
The major economies are not American anymore. They are Asian and South American.
We should realise that Hollywood is not obliged to write roles for Asian actors.
A whole bunch of big technological shocks occurred when Asian innovations – paper, gunpowder, the stirrup, the moldboard plow and so on – came to Europe via the Silk Road.
The AFC Asian Cup is the most important and biggest competition in Asia, and we should do our best to win it.
I am convinced the next major attack against the United States may well be conducted by people with Asian or African faces, not the ones that many Americans are alert to.
Deep down inside, I’m really a black girl stuck in a Mexican girl’s body. But I’m also in touch with my inner white girl and my inner Asian girl. I feel like a little bit of everybody.
Asian online games are far ahead of Western games in terms of business model, but the Western games do have a real advantage in terms of production values.
My Dad always maintained that although Mrs. Thatcher did not look like us, she absolutely thought like us. He referred to her as the first British Asian Prime Minister. Because she shared our core values and beliefs.
Michelle Yeoh is the biggest amazing female Asian star in the universe.
In Australia, it’s people from Asian countries who most often recognise me. There are often people just looking at me at the supermarket, like they’re shocked to think I would go to the supermarket.
The pains felt by Asian countries are our own pains. Disaster in Asia is nothing but ours as well.
The 1982 Asian Games champion M.D. Valsamma’s coach gave a statement in the media that if Valsamma had some 15 days training on a synthetic track, she would beat me. I was very interested in the challenge. I kept that paper cutting under my bed and used to read it often.
Apart from boosting our long-term economic strength like other Asian economic powers, Philippine companies expanding overseas and going beyond our comfort zones, or going to some uncharted territories, will help sharpen our management skills.
There were so many more opportunities in K-pop for a young Asian American singer.
Australia – not western in geography, of course, but in every other respect for sure (it certainly doesn’t want to be regarded as Asian, God forbid) – loves nothing more than to throw its weight around in South-East Asia by playing peacekeeper, carrying out its role as the United States’ regional policeman.
Being Asian where you’re supposed to be more quiet and softer and I was always getting reprimanded for laughing to loud or speaking to loudly.
My hope is that shows like ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ open the door for even more of those kinds of characters for Asian actors and actresses.
I believe that we are still hovering around the realm of Asians playing all types of Asians. I do not see that changing any time soon just because there is a limited pool of Asian actors.
There were so few examples of Asian or Asian-American lead characters on American TV or even in the movies. And the ones that have existed for so long were either stereotypical or offensive in some way, or just not reflective of the lives of people in the community.
I think that a lot of actors of color have said that it’s a wonderful thing to play a role that doesn’t have a race and that is kind of open to any sort of interpretation. I completely understand that, but at the same time, I just want Asian characters that are well-written.
Growing up, I never saw any Asian faces on TV, so it didn’t feel like a viable option.
As a major feature film with Asian Americans in leading roles, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ is important. We hope that this movie will be our ‘Black Panther,’ announcing to Hollywood that we are here, we belong, and we are ready for more.
Historically and culturally, New York City and our entire nation simply would not be the same without the infusion of Asian traditions. Whether it is food, art, language or any other facet of cultural life, Asian Americans have made our city and our country stronger and richer.
One thing I’ll tell you is the food in Sacramento is off the charts. You’ve got good Asian food, the farm system where everything is natural, which I believe in. I like organic.
I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don’t know the culture and therefore can’t write about it. By and large, if there’s an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called ‘Philip,’ the chances are I won’t.
Ride It’ did it for me. Not only did the Asian community love it, but the black community and the white community got to hear about it. The song became such a big hit for me and got me noticed by the CEOs of Cash Money in America.
If I go to the museum and see white bodies, black bodies, Asian bodies, Latino bodies, then I will expect to see those things every time I go. That matters a lot.
When I first ran for office in 2010, I was 32 years old. The average age in Congress was 69. I was a brown woman whose name was Reshma Saujani – a name most people couldn’t pronounce. And there was never a South Asian woman who had ever run for United States Congress before.
But, yeah, as far as Asian Americans go, I hope they know they can look at me and see that they can do music on their own, within a band or just on their own, and not feel like there’s any barriers. I’ve never felt any particular barriers myself, being who I am.
As a Korean American, I grew up yearning to see actors that looked like me. On the rare occasions I saw an Asian celebrity, I adored them unflaggingly.
Every time I do something, I think, ‘Am I portraying Asian people in the way I want to be portrayed?’
When I first ran for Congress in the 1990s, my background as an openly gay Asian was one of the focal points of the campaign, and, in fact, my opponent attacked me for it.
It’s really hard because obviously people label you as a British East Asian actor. And I’m just from Salford; it’s where I was born.
Compared to some Asian countries, I think Koreans like to keep a clean, fresh, and lively look: A well-moisturized face, a light, sheer base, natural, colorless eye makeup, and a slight stain of color on the lips.
I started out in public service in 1998 after the Asian financial crisis of ’97.
While there I began to study the Asian religions as theories of mind.
In 2008, Putin’s message was, ‘We aren’t like a Central Asian republic, we aren’t going to build a personalistic regime, we will have institutions.’ This is all abolished now. The very idea of a governing party and party career, as you have in China, that didn’t work.
A storm swept the world in 1968. It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by the U.S. against a poor southeast Asian country was seen every night on television.
I was raised on Hong Kong movies with Asian stars, so I’m still learning about Hollywood underrepresenting certain people.
We have a lion, tiger, liger, which is the father is a lion and the mother is a tiger, black and spotted leopard, mountain lion, Asian leopard cats. Weve got a tremendous number of the exotic feline.
I tried my hardest to be the opposite of a stereotypical Asian student.
We need to encourage the presence of more Asian writers and executive producers so they can fight for normalizing the casting of Asians in traditional American roles.
When a dish works, it works for everyone, whether you’re Asian, European, African, American or anybody else.
I should have been born a crazy rich Asian because I do have expensive taste. I have champagne taste but I’m on a beer budget.
It’s important for Asian American kids to see themselves in stories and to feel seen. They need to know that their stories are universal, too, that they, too, can fall in love in a teen movie. They don’t have to be the sidekick; they can be the hero.
We saw David Carradine, who is not of Asian descent, playing an Asian man on the show ‘Kung Fu’ that originally should have, and was developed for, Bruce Lee. To have that be the legacy that quote-unquote inspired ‘Shang-Chi’ in the beginning obviously doesn’t put us off to a great start.
I’ve always been asked the question of, ‘Do you feel like it’s getting better over the years for Asian representation in Hollywood?’ and I have always said, ‘Well, it’s better than it has been, but we have a long way to go.’
Pasta isn’t just for Italian food anymore. Now there are tasty pasta recipes found in Asian cuisine, and it’s emerging as a newfound love for vegans.
Asian people are very practical and come from a conservative world. The parents want their kids to be doctors and lawyers. There are casting calls for Asian children, but once the parents find out the children might miss school, they’re opposed to it.
The harassment, violence, and attacks against our Asian American and Pacific Islander friends, neighbors, and community members must stop.
Pre-‘Tokyo Drift,’ I was like: ‘Am I gonna play Yakuza #1 and Chinese Waiter #2 for the rest of my life? Is America even ready for an Asian face that speaks English, that doesn’t do Kung Fu?’
Now, there are more and more Asian models and opportunities to understand Asian beauty.
Usually when you’re Asian and you’re on set, you’re the only Asian there. Either you’re the token Asian or you’re the Asian sidekick.
China has become a major presence for most countries around the world but notably for its neighboring countries in Asia. So I think it is a common position for Japan and its Asian neighbors that we certainly would strive to maintain as much as possible friendly relations with China.
There really aren’t any completely Asian people singing right now.
My parents, or Asian parents in general, they’re like, ‘You should be a doctor, a lawyer, or a banker’ – all that’s laid out. As a kid that’s what I bought into, which is why I ended up going the corporate route initially.
Because if Asian American content is seen as a trend, the way that like leggings are in, then that’s not true representation or inclusion. The mainstream doesn’t have to worry about that.
In my own young black life, I have done my part to gentrify a half-dozen mixed neighborhoods ranging from Spanish Harlem to Fort Greene to the ninth arrondissement of Paris. Many of my well-educated black, Latino, Asian and Arab friends have done the same.
My job is to go into that audition and be good enough of an Asian actor – or an actor in general – to land that role so they don’t have to go out and hire a white guy. My job is to make sure I capitalize on these opportunities that other people created.
When Seoul hosted the Games in 1988, it became a symbol of the Asian Tigers’ ascent onto the world stage. In 1992, the Barcelona Olympics represented the unification of Europe. And when Rio plays host in 2016, it will reinforce the growing importance of Brazil and Latin America as a whole.
Comparing Asian writers mainly to other Asian writers implies that we’re all telling the same story – a disappointingly reductive view.
If I’m chosen for the Asian Cup, then I must help the team win. That’s the bottom line.
India, Pakistan, China, Singapore and South Korea are heavily investing in nuclear arms. Since 21st century is the century of Asia, Asian countries should be the first ones to drop this arms race.
It’s hard enough to celebrate being Asian in normal times. But now, when the whole world is kind of coming down, with all this rhetoric and people getting attacked on the street, you really need to deliberately try to celebrate Asian-ness.
As a community, as a group of people as a society, Asian Americans have not always been visible, but we’ve always been present.
It seems evident that the IMF has learned nothing from its inequality-inducing policies during the 1980s debt crises in Latin America nor from its recession-deepening response to the East Asian crisis of the late 1990s. In both regions, the IMF has become synonymous with making bad situations worse.
The Asia and the Pacific region is facing an epidemic of road death and injury, but we also have innovative Asian road safety solutions.
In international meets, like the Olympics and Asian Games, drug tests are mandatory. When everything is in place, then only will the records be ratified. I am not saying that people are taking drugs. Everybody knows what things are going on on the field. I know; everybody knows what’s going on.
But being Asian American, a lot of Asian American guys come up to me who are in interracial relationships and they tell me, ‘Growing up my partner had a big crush on you and so you’re probably one of the reasons why she married me, so thank you.’
Koreans love to dance; they love to sing. If you actually know Koreans, you see how absurd the stereotype of the ‘Asian robot’ is. They love to laugh – they’re very affectionate. Maybe because of their history of oppression, when they feel you are part of their tribe, they are intensely loyal. I love that about Koreans!
I never thought in a million years I’d be involved in a project that celebrated the fullness of my identity of being queer and Asian.
We have an edge over the Asian countries because we are playing European and Indian style of hockey, but we need to perform consistently.
Like nearly every other electoral subgroup in U.S. polling, ‘Asian’ is a label that masks the diversity among its peoples-perhaps even more than ‘Hispanic’ belies the significant variances between the cultures designated as such.
I’ve lived 16, 17 years of my life in Asia, and that’s most of my life. I was born in Asia – I’ve lived cultures that are synonymous with Asian culture – but it’s still not Asian enough for some people.
People like to say that East Asians in general, and Japanese in particular, are not very expressive: there’s that term ‘inscrutable.’ But often, Europeans just don’t get the Asian codes. Believe me, the message is being expressed OK.
It was rare to see an Asian man and white woman together when my parents fell in love. They went through years of persecution and harassment.
It’s always going to be difficult for Asian countries to create big leagues because Europe is so settled.
If white people are constantly told how culturally different their Asian neighbors are, and if Asians are told to be vigilant against white racism, both groups might conclude that they have little in common and much to fear from their neighbours.
Don’t break me up – I wouldn’t offend any person, be they black, Asian or whatever.
In Hollywood, I was never restricted to just one Asian character. I’ve been cast as a Chinese, a Vietnamese, a Korean, a Japanese and a Cambodian.
I’ve always wanted to be in comedy… growing up with Asian parents and not seeing yourself represented in media – it was always just a daydream.
Like many Asian parents, mine were very focused on education. My dad would quiz me with multiplication tables when I was about 5.
Singapore is a natural gateway for international firms looking to access Asia and for Asian businesses to access the world.
The dramatic modernization of the Asian economies ranks alongside the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution as one of the most important developments in economic history.
Surrounded by a burgeoning human population, Asian elephants have to contend with the spread of settlements and farming, and the demands of rapidly developing nations: plantations, mines, railways, and irrigation canals have carved up former wilderness.
Like, in Asian culture, you have to be down with the family. You have to be down with all the crazy traditional or non-traditional things we do.
Turkey is a European country, an Asian country, a Middle Eastern country, Balkan country, Caucasian country, neighbor to Africa, Black Sea country, Caspian Sea, all these.
I want to inspire Asian kids to become more artistic and creative rather than feeling that they have to be academic or whatever.
I feel more Asian than anything.
My favourite types of cuisine are Asian and Caribbean, and I love cooking new recipes for my family.
I think I am against stereotype. Generally, Asian guys are more quiet – they study and have a good work ethic. Generally, I have none of those things.
I would never say that claiming you’re a Christian is wrong. I understand that there is a human aspect of being able to identify people whether it’s African American, Hispanic or Asian. But the definition doesn’t define the relationship, meaning you can be married and still not know intimacy.
Asian culture is that people are quite excited about the players.
Asian Americans haven’t had as many opportunities as other people to build their careers in Hollywood, just because there hasn’t been that much of an interest, especially in Asian American males.
Few politicians and analysts understand the very real fault lines among Asian sub-groups: Some Asians have done very well for themselves. A lot of them have not.
It’s nice to be a woman, and it’s nice to be an Asian. But what’s more important is what I can bring back to my district.
I mess with white girls, Asian girls, Spanish girls, black girls, everything.
I think a lot of people, even if you’re not Asian, you go to your place of origin where your family comes from, and you get this sense of, ‘Wow – people look like me and talk like me and treat me like their son in the stores and like a cousin in the restaurants.’
I love anything to do with cooking, from watching the Food Network to reading recipe books by Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Levi Roots. My favourite types of cuisine are Asian and Caribbean, and I love cooking new recipes for my family.
There are no Asian leading men in Hollywood. There’s not an Asian Ryan Gosling or an Asian Brad Pitt.
Some people just yell ‘Asian BuzzFeed guy!’ and I turn around and distinctly yell back ‘Eugene!’
Living in the West, you see how there’s only two versions of how Asian men are supposed to be. Either they’re very nice, yuppie husbands with children in ads, or they’re IT geeks.
We have overcome economic devastation, defeated mighty oppressors, and lifted up generation after generation of Americans. We can – and we will – do it again. For that is our birthright as members of the American family – white, black, Hispanic, Asian, immigrant, or descendant of the Founding Fathers themselves.
All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that’s something where there hasn’t really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.
Paradoxically, the people and state of Japan living on such moral props were not innocent but had been stained by their own past history of invading other Asian countries.
I joke around all the time, ‘I’m Asian; I’m really good at math.’
I do not think of myself as a standard bearer for Asian players. I just try to work hard for myself.
I think I would like to see more roles for South Asian performers that are more inclusive and part of the American Diaspora, the American tapestry, perhaps the way that African American and Hispanic roles have developed.
I don’t think people should be afraid of portraying people with accents, especially Asian accents.
There’s still racism. Western Europe… has taken the native cultures of the Americas, the African cultures, the Asian civilization and lumped them together into The Others.
Ancestor worship, or filial piety so characteristic of Asian cultures, for example, does not really resonate with Americans who favor children, not grandparents.
There isn’t a traditional background of Asian women playing sport, but that’s changing.
Since I was a baby my goal was to be on TV because film was just impossible – you never got any Asian women in Western cinema. I grew up wanting to be in ‘East-Enders’ because film wasn’t even a dream. The community were very much like, ‘How can you want to act? It’s such a low-class profession.’
If we don’t qualify, if we didn’t win the Asian Cup, if we went into the last World Cup and you know, we got embarrassed in any way, I would be the man in front of that.
I’ve always been fascinated by Asian culture, and I love that women can play the lead in a horror film.
When I was growing up, Asians were so few and far between as to be almost invisible. And so the idea of an Asian American movement or an Asian American thrust in this country was unthinkable.
Not only our political system is broken, but how we do business and have public discourse with one another. The system in Hollywood, specifically, is not depicting people of color; we’re not even talking about Asian Americans or Latino Americans; we’re not even getting into that question.
Years later, when I was working as a trolley wally in a supermarket, I tackled the boredom by talking to the customers in as many different accents as I could manage. I started with one that I didn’t think would alert any suspicion – generic Asian – then moved on to Irish, Welsh, Australian and American.
When the Asian flu hit the United States in 1957, during the Eisenhower administration, it was just the latest contagion college students had faced in a lifetime of contagious diseases.
I don’t want to perpetuate a stereotype. I don’t want to take Asian representation backwards two steps. I don’t want to be part of the problem.
Kim’s’ gave me my first opportunity to portray an Asian character with significant story arcs and subtleties that most Western Asian actors can only dream of. The show was integral in allowing me to find my voice and shape the perspective and platform that I now have.
When I was with PSV Eindhoven in Holland, some people still thought Asian players weren’t good enough to play in Europe. It’s always good to rise to the challenge and prove them wrong. When I first came to United, I had to prove my ability again.
My parents were unconventional for Asian parents.
I’ve played roles that aren’t expected of an Asian.
Yeah, I didn’t ever think about music as a career. Like, it was never – it’s just something like an extracurricular activity that my mom put me in. And as every South Asian, you know, like, child, I was like – oh, OK, I can do medicine.
Given that trade benefited the Asian economies on the way up, it seems natural that the slowdown in global trade, whatever its causes, could lead to some loss of dynamism and growth in the region.
Asian men specifically have not been portrayed as the leading man or sex symbol.
Think of all the different features from Asian to African to Aboriginal to Caucasian. But we are all within the same species, Homo Sapiens.
My first Asian role model was Michelle Kwan. Her beauty comes from within. She’s also really beautiful on the outside. But when I first saw her ice-skate, her performance was so moving and beautiful that she just glowed.
I can change my appearance by doing simple things. People ask, ‘What’s your ethnicity? Are you part Asian? I can’t figure you out.’ That gives me range with the roles I play.
I try to take roles that don’t fall within the parameters of any Asian stereotype.
People lament that there’s no roles being written for South Asian or Muslim characters. But their parents don’t want their children to go into the entertainment field. You don’t get it both ways.
I think that it’d be nice for other Asians to support other Asian artists and help each other instead of pull each other down.
I was always the freaky Asian girl who drew these weird-looking Barbie dolls in class.
Seattle has a long tradition of celebrating local and non-local art – from the Burke and Seattle Art Museums to the Asian Art Museum.
If someone’s personality is ‘punch an Asian grandma,’ it’s not a dialogue. I have an Asian grandma. You want to punch her? There ain’t no common ground, mama.
There aren’t many Asian players in Europe or the Premier League, so that’s more attention for me.
The only thing I know about being Asian is that my hair is black and my eyelashes are straight and I have strange eyebrows.
Casting me as King Arthur was quite bold of ‘Spamalot’s producers, although it has been historically proved Arthur was Asian, and that Sunday trading started with Asians in 11th-century Britain.
A lot of Asians and Asian-Americans have liver problems. If you basically ask anybody who is Asian, they or one of their relatives will have some sort of a liver issue, and the liver actually falls into the jurisdiction of the gastroenterologist.
Perhaps the strongest signal of reengagement with Southeast Asia was the U.S.’s accession to the Southeast Asian Treaty of Amity and Cooperation.
Every community should have a superhero. And the truth is, for many of us in the Asian community, we didn’t grow up with that.
A symbol in Chinese Buddhism is the lotus plant, which regenerates every year, symbolizing life, renewal, and the Buddha himself. Actually it is used in many Asian religions including Hinduism. Few people think of it as food even though it is used as an ingredient all the time.
I’m Asian, and I’m an actress, and I’ve been doing this since I was a teenager, so if anyone understands the conversation about misrepresentation and underrepresentation, it’s me. I live and breathe it; this is my life.
I think being an Asian woman has been more of an advantage than a disadvantage. It helps me stand out from the rest of the entertainers out there. Again, being from such an ethnically diverse place like New York, you get comfortable and confident with being different!
The most important thing that certainly the United States and other Asian and Pacific actors have done is to urge that whatever happens, however the dispute is resolved, that it be resolved peacefully.
God has a team. It’s made up of African-American, Anglo, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and a variety of other people and cultures. He never wants you to make your distinction, your history, or your background so precious to you that it messes up His team.
I never considered myself as part of a biracial family – we’re just a family – but my parents are white, and my brother is Asian.
As an Asian guy, I would love to see a big blockbuster with Asian lead characters.
I turned down a lot of parts, and I ate a lot of canned tuna for dinner because I was just like, ‘No, I don’t want to do that; no, that’s awful.’ But sticking to my guns paid off, and I can look back now and be proud that I refused to take any stereotypical Asian parts.
By playing in the street, the level of Asian football can absolutely improve, as you will get more technical players. They will be quicker, more creative, and after succeeding in the street, it will be a piece of cake for them to do well eleven a side.
I’ve done a lot of books with Asian antecedents to them – some of my fantasy novels have been that way, and certainly in the ‘Battletech’ universe, there’s a lot of Asian culture in that.
Politics abhors a vacuum, and Asian countries will gravitate towards China if U.S. influence is perceived as declining.
You’d see Asian faces on TV, but it was so rare, especially in the comedy space – that for me was Ken Jeong doing stand-up… it’s amazing that I can call him a friend now and a colleague.
