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.

Idol Winners of Mixed Heritage

Tonight, American Idol will crown a new winner. More than 40 countries have their own version of the competition.

Below are winners of Idol TV shows around the world. Each of them are of mixed-race descent and/or upbringing, a reminder that music exists in every culture.

Guy Sebastian - Australian Idol, 2003

White (Portuguese and English) and Sri Lankan

Taufik Batisah - Singapore Idol, 2004

Indian and Indonesian

Ben Lummis - NZ Idol, 2004

White (New Zealander), Maori, and Tongan

Melissa O'Neil - Canadian Idol, 2005

White (Canadian) and Chinese

Jorun Stiansen - Idol (Norway), 2005

Transracial adoptee: Colombian raised by Norwegian (White) parents

Eva Avila - Canadian Idol, 2006

White (French Canadian) and Peruvian

Mau Marcelo - Philippine Idol, 2006

Puerto Rican (White and Black) and Filipino

Matthew Saunoa - NZ Idol, 2006

White (English) and Samoan

Jordin Sparks - American Idol, 2007

Black (American) and White (American)

Mark Medlock - Deutschland sucht den Superstar (Germany), 2007

Black (American) and White (German)

Diandra Flores - Idols (Finland), 2012

White (Finnish) and Chilean

Sophie-Tith Charvet - Nouvelle Star (France), 2013

White (French) and Laotian

The series that put mixed girls on TV

11 years ago today, the TV show "24" made its debut. The ways that it challenged stereotypes seemed to predict the future: it showed a Black president 6 years before Obama's election, yet another Black president 2 years before the election, and it showed a White/Caucasian female Islamic terrorist 3 years before Muriel Degauque's suicide bombing.

In November 2008, the same month Barack was elected, the show portrayed the inauguration of a woman president---yet another prediction. Coincidentally, today is Election Day.

Some people think the series stereotypes Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims as terrorists, but they apparently haven't seen many episodes. More than half of the villains on the show are neither Arab, nor Middle Eastern, nor Islamic. Not only that but the show often addresses the prejudice against these groups. In season 7 for example, White/Caucasian domestic terrorists try to frame an innocent man for a bombing; they think they'll get away with it because the man is Pakistani American and a practicing Muslim.


Another way that "24" was groundbreaking was by casting an unusually high number of mixed-race women. If you consider that...

1. the entertainment industry has always been White/Caucasian-dominated 

2. the media and pop culture have always ignored mixed heritage 

...then it's unprecedented to see this many mixed-race people in a major network TV series. 

This show holds the record for the most multiracial actresses in a TV series. This isn't an official record but it's hard to imagine another TV series with even more mixed actresses than this. If I'm wrong and there's another series with more, then that's great because it means there's more mixed people on TV than I thought. 

I invite/challenge you to make a list like this for a series that beats this record. Meanwhile, this is my list of mixed girls on "24"...

Marisol Nichols

Even though her character, Nadia Yassir, is Middle Eastern, she's really Mexican, Hungarian, Spanish, and Romanian.

Reiko Aylesworth

Her role as Michelle Dessler gives her more appearances on the show than anybody on this list. 

Her first name is a hint of her quarter-Japanese heritage, which also includes Welsh and Dutch.

Megalyn Echikunwoke

She plays the daughter of Senator Palmer in season 1. Her mother is White/Caucasian and her father is Nigerian.

Chuti Tiu

Her character is the personal assistant of the villain in season 2. She was born and raised in Wisconsin and is Chinese and Filipino.

Lourdes Benedicto

Her role is computer programmer Carrie Turner in season 2. She's Filipino and Dominican.

Christina Chang

She portrays Dr. Sunny Macer in seasons 3 and 7. She was born and raised in Taiwan to a Chinese-Filipino dad and a White/Caucasian mom.

Gina Torres

Her character is Julia Milliken in season 3. Both of her parents are multiracial Cubans; Gina, her mom, and her dad are all mixed Latino/Black.

Kamala Lopez

She plays the wife of a federal agent in season 3. Her dad is Venezuelan and her mom is Indian (South Asian, not Native American). She was born in New York City and grew up in Venezuela.

Lana Parilla

Her character is computer expert Sarah Gavin in season 4. Her mom is Italian and her dad is Puerto Rican, and she was born and raised in New York City.

Merle Dandridge

She appears in one episode of season 8 playing an attorney. Her mother is Japanese/Korean and her dad is Black. She was born in Okinawa, Japan and grew up in Nebraska.

Neisha Folkes

Her role is a temporary babysitter at CTU Los Angeles in season 3. Her page on a casting website confirms she's mixed race, though it doesn't say her specific ethnicities.

Jacqueline Piñol

She's in one episode in season 7, playing a woman taken hostage in her house. Her heritage is mixed French Latin American. She was born in New York City and grew up in Los Angeles.

Sandrine Holt

She plays the First Lady's assistant in season 5, and also the mother of a girl who's played by the next actress on this list. Sandrine was born in England and grew up in Canada. Her birth surname is Ho, which is from her Chinese father, and her mother is White/Caucasian.

Skylar Roberge

Her character is a kidnapped girl in season 5 and the previous actress on this list portrays her mom. Apparently the producers were aware of mixed heritage when they cast these two parts. Skylar was born in Hawaii, which is the US state with the highest percentage of mixed people.

Talin Silva

Her page on a casting website confirms she's mixed but doesn't say her specific background. Whether or not she has any Middle Eastern heritage, she plays a little girl from the fictional Mideast country of Kamistan, in one episode of season 8.

Unconfirmed

These actresses on "24" might be multiracial but I couldn't find anything on their ethnicities. 

Clockwise from top-left, along with their roles in the series:

1. Tamara Tunie: CTU director Alberta Green in season 1

2. Pia Artesona: the secretary of one of the bad guys in season 5

3. Lissa Pallo Strong: a woman at a hotel bar in season 5

4. Jolene Kim: the assistant to the US president in season 6
5. Tania Verafield: a woman on the other end of a phone call in season 8
6. Sarah Hollis: an aide at the White House in season 8

Alexandra Lydon

She plays the daughter of the villain in season 3. Unlike the "unconfirmed" actresses above, I did find info on her ethnicity...

...and she isn't multiracial, she's Irish. She shouldn't be on this list but I included her for 2 reasons:

1. She is mixed nationality because she's a dual citizen (Ireland and USA), and I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that nationality isn't the same thing as race. 90% of the time, when somebody says "nationality", they really mean race/ethnicity. I'm always correcting people. Nationality means citizenship; it's a legal status that has nothing to do with racial/ethnic background. The nationalities of most of these actresses is American.

2. In my opinion, her physical appearance could pass as some type of mixed heritage, which means she could portray a mixed character, which means she could influence media representations of multiracials if she ever played one, even if she might not be one in real life. Marisol Nichols, the first actress on this list, isn't a Middle Easterner but she played one; she therefore had an influence on how that group is represented.

The year of mixed-race TV stars

Half of the posts I've written so far this year are lists of multiracial actors and actresses on TV shows. But four decades before any of those shows hit the airwaves, one mixed actress and one mixed actor made history in 1966.

The first mixed-race person to star in a TV show was Marlo Thomas, who played the title role in the series That Girl, which first aired on September 8, 1966 on ABC. (1966 is pretty early, I assume I'm correct in saying she was the first, but correct me if you know an earlier person).

She is mixed Arab and European. Her dad was the son of Christian immigrants from Lebanon (I mention they were Christian because everybody assumes all Arabs are Muslim, and I love to challenge stereotypes), and her mom was Italian-American.

That's Marlo with her dad, and her with the whole family (she's the oldest kid).

After the debut of That Girl, ABC premiered a show with a mixed-race male in one of the lead roles—on the very next day after That Girl debuted. As though they wanted to prevent anyone from saying they're sexist against mixed guys.

That series was The Green Hornet on September 9, 1966. One of the main characters was played by Bruce Lee. He wasn't the main star, but decades later the DVD release said he was (above), as if ABC regretted not giving the lead to a mixed actor, like they did to a mixed actress.

Most people have heard of him, but very few know he was mixed race. His dad was Chinese and his mom was biracial Chinese/German.

In both photos, he's in the middle and his biracial mother is on the left.

As if they were addicted to being pioneers, Marlo and Bruce went further and became the first mixed woman and man on the cover of the biggest TV magazine, in the same year their two programs premiered.

It's like the TV industry was proclaiming the arrival of multiracials.

(Correct me if you know an earlier mixed person who was on TV Guide's cover)

Mixed-race people on "Prison Break"

The TV show "Prison Break" is one of the few series that stars a mixed-race person.



After watching every episode, I realized the lead actor wasn't the only one who's mixed.



Wentworth Miller

He plays the main character Michael Scofield. Miller was born in England and grew up in the US. His dad is mixed Black/White and his mother is mixed White & Middle Eastern (Syrian and Lebanese).

"My father is black and my mother is white. Therefore, I could answer to either, which kind of makes me a racial Lone Ranger, caught between two communities." (Quote)


Callie Thorne

She is mixed British, Assyrian, Italian, Armenian, and Portuguese. She portrays the ex-wife of federal agent Alex Mahone.




Demi Lovato

Before she was popular as a singer, she was in the season 2 episode "First Down". Her heritage is mixed Irish, Mexican, and Italian.




Reggie Lee

He was born in the Philippines, grew up in Ohio, and is mixed Chinese and Filipino. His character is agent Bill Kim in season 2.




Holly Valance

She portrays a Czech immigrant (who gets mistaken for Russian) in seasons 1 & 2. Her mother is from England, her dad is from Yugoslavia, and she was born and raised in Australia.




James Hiroyuki Liao

Like his name suggests, he's half Japanese and half Taiwanese. Like his accent on the show suggests, he's from New York. He plays the hacker guy Roland Glenn in season 4.




Camille Guaty

Her role is Sucre's girlfriend Maricruz. Her family is from the Canary Islands, which is off the coast of Morocco but is owned by Spain. She's mixed Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Spanish.





This is the second time I made a list of multiracials on a TV series. Maybe I should watch more TV and write more lists like this.

Though most of the shows I've watched don't have enough mixed people for me to make a list. Do you know any shows with mixed people?