Portrayals of Asian Guys with Latino, Black, White, & Mixed Girls

Asian men are rarely in interracial marriages, according to the US Census. And they're often stereotyped as unmanly, sexually undesirable, or emasculated.

But the media still depicts them in interracial relations. Here are some examples.

Guide:

E - East Asian

SE - Southeast Asian

S - South Asian

"South Asian" means countries like India, Pakistani, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.

Movies

All My Life - E

American Beauty - E
Anna and the King - SE
As Long As We're Together - SE
Battle Creek Brawl - E
Bel Canto - E

Blue Bayou - E
Bridge to the Sun - E
Broken Blossoms - E
Bullet to the Head - E
Cavite - SE
Cinderella - SE
Cities of Last Things - E
Columbus - E
Combination Platter - E
Cosmopolitan - S
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story - E
Earthquake Bird - E
Fakin' Da Funk - SE
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift - E
Fast & Furious - E
Fast Five - E
Fast & Furious 6 - E
Game of Death - E
Harold & Kumar (all 3 movies) - E
Hiroshima Mon Amour - E
In Another Country - E
Japanese Story - E
Johnny Tsunami - E
Just a Kiss - S
Kites - S
Lagaan - S

La Nuit Venue ("Night Comes") - E
Leonie - E
Lion - S

Lost Girls and Love Hotels - E
A Majority of One - E
Mao's Last Dancer - E
Man Up - E
Never Forever - E
Ode to My Father - E
Romeo Must Die - E
Seventh Moon - E
Shanghai Kiss - E
Sophie and the Rising Sun - E

Spider-Man: Far From Home - SE
Stratosphere Girl - E
Subject: I Love You - SE
The Bitter Tea of General Yen - E
The Cheetah Girls: One World - S
The Crimson Kimono - E
The Edge of Seventeen - E
The Hedgehog - E
The Hundred-Foot Journey - S
The Inn of the Sixth Happiness - E
The Jungle Book - S
The Kids Are All Alright - S
The King and I - SE
The Last Godfather - E
The Lover - SE

The Medallion - E
The Night Train to Kathmandu - S
The Ramen Girl - E

The Spy Next Door - E
The Sun is Also a Star - E
Tokyo Fiancée - E
We Were Soldiers - E

TV Series

21 Thunder - SE
2 Broke Girls - E
Alexa & Katie - E
Amber - E
American Vandal (Season 2) - E
Black Mirror - E
Black Mirror: White Christmas - E
Community - E
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - SE
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders - mixed E
CSI: Cyber - E
Degrassi: Next Class - E
Dramaworld - E
FlashForward - E
Fresh Off the Boat - E
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - SE
Giri/Haji - E
Hawaii Five-0 (multiple) - E
Heroes - E
Homeland - S
Into the Badlands
iZombie - S
Last Tango in Halifax - S
Living with Models
Martial Law - E

Massan
Selfie - E
Skins
Supernatural
The Man in the High Castle - E

The Nine Lives of Chloe King - E
The Simpsons (3 times) - E, S
The O.C. (2 times)
The Walking Dead - E
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - SE
Video Game High School - E
White Teeth - S

Theater
Allegiance - E
A Majority of One - E
Soft Power - E
The King and I - SE
The North China Lover - E

Books

A Long Way Home
America Is In the Heart
Anna and the King of Siam
Bel Canto
Bridge to the Sun
China Blues
Everything I Never Told You

Lost Girls and Love Hotels
Mao's Last Dancer
On Gold Mountain
State of Wonder
Station Eleven
The Earthquake Bird
The Girl From Junchow
The Japanese Lover
The Lola Quartet
The Lotus Eaters
The Lover
The North China Lover
The Russian Concubine
The Sun is Also a Star
Tokyo Fiancée
White Teeth

You've Reached Sam

Do you know others? Please mention them in the comments.

More than Indian or Chinese

On July 22, 2005, police in London, England mistakenly killed a man because they thought he was a terrorist. People said the guy had an "Asian" appearance. On June 30, 2007, there was an attack at Glasgow International Airport in Scotland, and the suspects were also described as "Asian."

But wait.

Did they mean these guys looked Chinese? In America, if someone looks "Asian" it means they look "Chinese" (regardless of what ethnicity they actually are). But these events happened in the United Kingdom; when they said "Asian" they meant Indian (from India). The American media would never use the word "Asian" to describe people from India (maybe they would use the term "South Asian").

Most people will agree Filipinos are Asian, but I have never heard people use "Asian" to describe their appearances. In the US, Asian is generalized as Chinese. In the UK, Asian is generalised as Indian. In the Philippines there are people who look Chinese, Indian, or a mix of both, like boxer Manny Pacquiao (picture above).

"Asian" usually refers to Chinese or Indian, but it doesn't always mean people from China and India.

In the United States, "Asian" usually means people from here:


...Vietnamese, Japanese, and Koreans are generalized as "Chinese."

But in the UK, "Asian" is:



...Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh are also included.

I don't know what "Asian" means in Australia/NZ or Canada. If you are from those countries, please comment.

In any case, "Asian" more accurately means people from here:




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Tiger Woods could die

There's this drug, which was approved in the U.S. last year, that was designed to treat heart problems. But get this, this drug was also designed--for Black people. "Bidil" is the only drug in America that is made for a specific racial group; in this case, African-Americans. As usual, this got me thinking. How Black do you have to be for this medication to work? And by "how Black," I mean: how much of your blood has to be African? When they tested this drug, they said it worked best for people who self-identitified as Black, but I don't think this will work when prescribing it, because not everyone who self-identifies as Black is going to be genetically Black enough for this drug to work. (A drug can't know your personal identity!). Whoever designed Bidil most likely didn't have mixed-race people in mind.

However, I can understand why people would want a drug like this. There are some diseases that are very common among a specific race. Like sickle-cell anemia and glaucoma, both of which affect Black people more than other ethnicities. But I don't think it's as easy as marketing a drug to people of a certain race...because there are people who aren't a certain race.

If you're reading this because of the strange title, then I won't disappoint you...I was imagining, what if these racial drugs were used in emergency rooms at hospitals? This could prove to be a disaster because race isn't always clear. If someone like Tiger Woods was rushed to the emergency room, the doctors would think he's Black just by looking at him; so they'd give him the drug for African-Americans...but he'd die anyways because he's only a quarter Black (many people assume he's all African-American). If these race medications were necessary, they'd have to give him the Asian drug because that's what most of his heritage is. Or better yet, give him an accurate dosage:

1/8 European drug
1/8 American Indian drug
1/4 Black drug
1/2 Asian drug


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New Year Special: interracial history

It's 2007! And to ring in the new year, I thought I'd take a look back at mixed-race experiences of the past. We often think about interracial marriages as being a new thing, but it's been around for centuries. Here are some random multi-ethnic stories from the past.


During the 1950s, North Korea and East Germany had a foreign exchange program which allowed Korean students to study at German universities. This resulted in some interracial marriages between German and Korean college students. However, it also resulted in some heartbreak; in 1961, North Korea ordered their students to return home. Some of the German wives have been trying to reunite with their Koreans husbands for more than 40 years.

Separated by fiat, a German awaits North Korean spouse

Please Find My Husband… Heartbreak over a Repatriated Husband


One can only imagine what half-Japanese people experienced during World War II; especially if the other half of their heritage was a country that was fighting Japan. Here is an article (with an audio interview) about 2 orphan sisters who grew up in Britain during the 1940s. They did not know until they were older that their mother was British and their father was Japanese.

Home Truths: Half Japanese


In 1889, a Chinese immigrant to the U.S. named Huie Kin married a Dutch American woman named Louise Van Arnam. Today, the descendants of their 9 children comprise a multi-ethnic clan who are proud of their mixed heritage (mostly European and Asian), which is celebrated at their family reunions.

The Huie Kin Family's Dynasty of Diversity


Victoria Ka'iulani would have been the next queen of Hawai'i, had the monarchy not been overthrown in 1893. She was the daughter of a businessman from Scotland and a princess in Hawaii's royal family, which made her half Hawaiian and half Scottish.

Women in History of Scots Descent: Princess Kaiulani

Sheraton Princess Kaiulani: History of the Princess


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Family tree leaves many colors

If you look at the family tree of a mixed-race person, you'll probably see one ethnicity on the mother's side and a completely different one on the father's. That's because many mixed people are the children of 2 monoracial parents. But imagine a family tree that doesn't have one ethnicity on each side, but instead, has many ethnicities on both sides.

This is what the Huie Kin family tree is like. In 1889, a Chinese immigrant named Huie Kin married a Dutch American woman named Louise Van Arnam. And they had 9 children. Here's a link to the story:

THE HUIE KIN FAMILY'S DYNASTY OF DIVERSITY

I've heard stories before about interracial marriages in the 19th century, and almost always, the modern-day descendants of those marriages don't really have a mixed heritage anymore, because the following generations married people of the same ethnicity, which gradually wiped out traces of a multiracial heritage, because one ethnicity slowly became dominant in the family tree. This family, however, is a different story.

The Huie Kin daughters all married Chinese men, and the Huie Kin sons all married White women. So the Eurasian identity of this family has been unusually maintained for more than a century. How often do you see a mixed-race family that's been mixed-race for over a hundred years? I guess these kind of families are common in some places, like Hawaii, but this was the first time I've read in-depth about it.


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"Kim" isn't always Korean

By now you've probably heard about a family that was stranded in the snow in Oregon earlier this month. When James Kim, his wife, and their daughters went missing a few weeks ago, the story made international news, probably because Kim was well-known within the technology community; he was an editor for CNET and also worked for TechTV.

When I noticed that this story made news around the world, I couldn't help but wonder about what people thought about James Kim's ethnicity. I've never seen news reports that mentioned he was Korean-American, and that's a good thing, because mentioning race would be inappropriate here. However, when people outside of America heard about this, they probably assumed it was a White family who were lost (because most Americans are White). If they saw James Kim's picture, they probably assumed it was an Asian family who were lost.

Actually, it wasn't a White OR an Asian family that was lost...it was both! No, there weren't two families, it was just one. You're probably confused right now--unless you're aware of miscegenation. James Kim was Korean (ethnically) but his wife was White. That's her in the picture above with one of their children. My point is, I'm glad the media didn't say anything about ethnicity when covering this story, but it disturbs me a little that some people would assume this family is full-Asian just because they saw James Kim's picture, or assume this family is full-White just from seeing his wife's picture.


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Racism from a non-racist attack

This week, there was a school shooting in Canada (Montreal) and the shooter was a 25-year-old Canadian man. Hold on...what image did you get when I said "Canadian man"? Did you imagine a White guy? Most likely you did, because many people assume "Canadian = White".

The Dawson College killer was Kimveer Gill, which is a name that could be interpreted as mixed-race because it sounds ethnically unclear. Shortly after the shooting, a witness was being interviewed and he was asked what race the shooter was. He shrugged and said "White"...he said it as if it didn't matter what race the killer was.

It turns out Gill's heritage is Indian (from India) and he was born in Canada. He posted some pictures of himself on the Internet (which have since been taken down), and he does look somewhat mixed-race. However, he is technically Asian (because India's in Asia), one witness said he was White, and on one of his photos, someone made a comment calling him a Middle Eastern terrorist.

So...a witness thought he was White, an angry person on the Internet thought he's Arabic, but in reality, he's Asian. The shooting is believed to be random violence, and not a racist or terrorist attack. Yet when people see what he looks like or learn what his ethnicity is, some of them immediately make racist comments. Some of them start thinking it WAS racist or terrorist, even when the attack itself wasn't.

All of this shows that people usually assume that individual humans can only belong to one race. The witness who said that he was White, was responding to a question of whether Gill was "White, Black, (or) Asian". White, Black, Asian? You mean there's no in-between? Of course there is! Now, let's say Kimveer Gill WAS mixed-race instead of only Indian. Let's say he was White, Black, AND Asian (yes, that's genetically possible). Would there still be racist comments towards him? There definitely would be, but what?

Tom Cruise might be Asian

When I saw pictures of Tom Cruise's new-born daughter, Suri Cruise, the first thing I noticed was how Asian she looks. That's remarkable if you consider that neither of her parents are known to be Asian, and I'm not the only who thinks Suri Cruise looks Asian, as you can see from this news website in China:

WHERE DID SURI CRUISE GET HER "ASIAN" FEATURES FROM?

Since she's the daughter of well-known Hollywood stars, it's likely that she will become famous herself. And it certainly looks like it, since she's only 4 months old and she's already on the cover of Vanity Fair and even has a whole issue about her. Whether or not she does become famous, maybe she will make people think twice about what it means to be "White" as well as what race and ethnicity mean.

People who haven't seen pictures of Suri would assume that she's just another White baby, and what kind of image does "White baby" create in people's minds? Certainly nothing that looks like Suri Cruise. As you can see on comment #13 on this page about Suri, which says:

Now I understand completely why her name is Suri. It's short for surrogate. Suri is part Asian and there is no doubt about it. Check out those eyes and head of hair. Not a Caucasian baby you can't fool me.

"Not a Caucasian baby"?? "There's no doubt about it"??!! Then what does a Caucasian baby LOOK LIKE!? Obviously, whoever wrote that comment has some stereotypical image of White people in their head.

Now a part of me wants Suri Cruise to grow up and become very famous, so that her Asian features will be in the minds of every American some day. And the fact that people will know she's the daughter of Tom Cruise (who looks White) will hopefully make people think more about race and ethnicity; make people think more about the diversity of White people.

It's rare people like Suri Cruise, who isn't mixed-race (ostensibly) but still looks like a different race than her parents, who will hopefully make people think twice about what race looks like. Hopefully she will become so famous that she destroys the stereotype that White people can't look Asian. And at 4 months old, it looks like she's already started.

"Asian" girl (part 2)

This is related to a previous post I made.

I saw this picture on a stock photos archive, and the caption said "Young Hispanic girl doing homework on the floor." But if you look at the tags below, you'll see the words "Asian ethnicity." Apparently someone couldn't decide whether this girl is Hispanic/Latino or Asian...so they put both.

(Click on the picture to see what I'm talking about)

The Multi-angle Phenomenon

This week's topic is familiar to many mixed-race people. Have you ever glanced at someone, and then when you saw them again...they looked like a different race from when you first saw them? I'm talking about how a person's racial appearance can change depending on the distance, lighting, and angle from which you're looking at them. This works better in real life than in pictures, but I'll try to illustrate.

What ethnicity does this woman look like?























To me, she looks Latina or southern European (she looks Italian or some kind of Mediterranean ethnic group in my opinion).

Ok, how about the woman below? What ethnicity?















Asian? Most people would say she looks Asian (maybe Chinese or Japanese).

What's interesting is...it's the same woman in both pictures!

Let's do a guy now.
The man below (on the left) looks like what ethnicity?


























Most people would say he's Black.

And the guy below?

























Yes, it's the same guy in both pictures. In the 2nd photo, I think he could pass for Filipino, or maybe a Latino with strong American Indian blood.

"So what's the point?" you're probably asking. My point is, people will not always look like their ethnicity. The woman above is Tammy Duckworth, who is currently running for congress in Illinois, USA. She is half Thai and half White. The guy above is Will Demps, who is a football player for the NFL (New York Giants). He is half Korean and half Black.

Did you notice how their races changed? (In my opinion at least). They're the same two people, but their ethnicities changed because of the lighting and camera angle. This could cost them their lives if they looked like a certain race at the wrong time.

What if Will Demps was in a dark room and then he encountered a racist Filipino who's killing Black people? Do you think the killer's gonna go "hmm...I don't know"?

Or what if that same racist Filipino person saw Will Demps in bright sunlight? Let's just say, Demps would look more Black in a dark room.

This isn't just a case of "what if." This has happened. After 9/11, Middle Eastern people weren't the only ones who experienced racism, but also "dark-skinned Latinos with goatees." In many cases, these Latinos were mistaken to be Arab and then were attacked based on that. I guess the angle and lighting made them look more Arab at the time.

Jim Crow in Japan

For a country where one ethnicity makes up over 99% of the population, it's understandable why racism isn't a such a big deal. But when I saw these signs, which are common in modern-day Japan, I couldn't help but feel shocked.



















































This kind of thing is accepted?! One of the most industrialized and developed countries in the world is actually fine with racial discrimination!? Don't they realize that there will ALWAYS be some sort of gray area about who is Japanese and who isn't? Not to mention, this kind of thing could damage foreign relations with other countries. And not everyone is going to be either 0% Japanese or 100% Japanese. Not only am I talking about mixed-race people, but also Japanese citizens who aren't ethnically Japanese.

The website where I got the pictures above from belongs to a Japanese citizen who isn't Japanese by blood. At one point, he tried entering a club that said "Japanese only," but they wouldn't let him in--even after he showed them his Japanese passport. Obviously, those "Japanese only" signs are referring to race and ethnicity rather than nationality.

It makes me wonder how they react to part-Japanese people. Most likely they would consider them to be non-Japanese.

Most people would agree that racism is outdated, but in no way is it gone. Even in the racially diverse United States, where Jim Crow laws for segregation no longer exist, ethnic bigotry lives on quietly among the few hate groups that still exist. Japan is an even more fertile ground for racism because it's not diverse. Even if Japan is one the most successful economies in the world, and one of the most advanced countries on Earth, its race relations are anything but successful and advanced.

Does this girl look Asian?

I was browsing around on Flickr when I saw these pictures, and I noticed one of the tags the photographer put on these pictures was "Asian". Meaning: the photographer is saying "this girl is Asian."

But I thought to myself, "this girl doesn't look Asian."















Maybe this girl is mixed Asian with another ethnicity, but the other tags don't indicate that. It only says "Asian." Maybe the photographer knows this little girl and her ethnic background? Or maybe he or she didn't know the girl and just guessed? Why did the photographer tag these pictures "Asian"? If he/she didn't know her, did she really look Asian? I'm not saying: "this girl is definetely not Asian", I'm saying, she doesn't LOOK Asian TO ME. To me, she looks more Latina or South American, so it surprised me when I saw she was tagged as "Asian." If she's only part Asian, why isn't the rest of her heritage tagged?

Ok, you're probably wondering, "what's the big deal?" "does it matter what her race is?"

Unless I am completely wrong and this girl happens to be full-blooded Asian, this girl is either part Asian and part another race...or she isn't Asian at all. If she is part Asian, did the photographer know that? If he did, why didn't he/she tag the rest of her heritage? If not, why was she tagged "Asian"? If she isn't Asian at all, then the photographer was probably just guessing her race, but does she really look Asian?















My point is two things:

1. People have different perspectives of what an ethnicity looks like; I'm not saying the photographer was wrong and I'm right. I'm saying, if he/she was guessing her ethnicity, then it shows that people have different visual perceptions of a racial group.

2. Multiracial people are usually lumped into just 1 category. If this girl is mixed-race, then why weren't all of her ethnicities tagged? If she's Asian and another race, why is "Asian" the only one that's mentioned?

Many people are unaware that a human being can belong to more than one race. We aren't all just White, or just Black, or just Asian, just Latino, etc.

I know all of this is just random, harmless pictures on the Internet, but what if it were something worse? What if, instead of a photographer matching a race to someone's picture, it was a White supremacist matching a race to a potential victim? I might sound like I'm exaggerating, but we can't escape the reality that hate crimes still exist. Like I mentioned 3 days ago, this seemingly harmless process of guessing someone's ethnicity can potentially determine if you are murdered or not.

She's probably not "immune"

About 2 months ago was the 79th annual National Spelling Bee and I was browsing through YouTube videos, and there was this one video that showed these people watching the spelling bee on TV. In this video, they're watching the very end of the spelling bee where it's only 2 contestants left. One of these contestants was a girl named Finola Hackett, who is half White (Canadian) and half Chinese.

Anyways, in this video, one of the people who was watching made a comment about the Asian kids in the spelling bee. The first thing I thought when I heard this comment was "what about Finola?"

Finola is half Asian, but I am PRETTY sure that the guy who made that comment about Asians wasn't referring to her. Not just that, but earlier in the video, that same guy was cheering her on. But when some of the FULL-Asian kids showed up on the screen, he automatically saw that they're Asian and commented about it.

What made me sad was that all of this made Finola seem "immune" to racism, because her presence onscreen didn't trigger any racial comments, but the presence of full-Asian kids DID trigger them.

This goes to show you how the average person thinks of race; they assume everyone is full-blooded (and that multiracial is somehow impossible). Of course, Finola could always be mistaken for something she's not, and then get insulted for that. But in that YouTube video, she was immune to some ignorant guy's comment against Asians, even though she IS Asian.

What if this were more serious than a few comments? Like a hate crime? This kind of thing can potentially decide if you are murdered or not.