Stories of Why Asian Representation Matters

I wrote these words and shared many of them on social media before the Atlanta massacre on March 16, 2021. I considered waiting until a later time to share them on my blog. But one thing the recent tragedy has brought to light is how the limited representation of Asian Americans combined with the weaponizing of terms such as “Kung Flu” and the fetishizing of Asian women has done tremendous harm and has even put lives in danger. I hope that by sharing stories like these, maybe we can start to cultivate change.

Story No. 1:

I went to an art supplies store to look for a certain set of markers that included nine skin tone colors. No luck. The closest thing I found was a six-piece set of skin tone colors—the darkest color a medium brown and none of them were even close to matching mine. I gave up and left the store with a single, green marker for coloring pictures of leaves.

When I got home, I did a search on the internet and found Crayola’s Colors of the World collection—24 beautiful shades ranging from porcelain to deep browns. As I added the marker and colored pencil sets to my Amazon cart, I found myself getting emotional. Memories of drawing self portraits in art class and awkwardly staring at the peach and brown crayons, decades of trying to lighten my skin and avoiding letting my skin tan, years of feeling ugly because “beautiful” photos didn’t include women who had any features that looked like mine. I confronted it all with my Amazon cart. (“Medium deep golden” is the color of me!)

Story No. 2:

When I heard about Raya and the Last Dragon for the first time—the movie with the first Southeast Asian Disney princess—I cried. Full-on, intense, happy tears. I turn 40 this year and I’ve waited my entire life for this! I wish I could tell little, seven-year-old me (or even 25-year old me) that one day my dream would come true. A strong Disney princess who has brown skin and a nose like mine, eats congee, and even has some Filipino martial arts moves—what a time to be alive!

I’m the daughter of Filipino immigrants and most of my closest friends growing up were also the children of Filipino immigrants. They were like cousins and their parents became surrogate titos and titas. I grew up feeling very connected to my Filipino heritage. Now I live hundreds of miles from home in one of the whitest cities in America where I have one Filipina friend. We got to watch Raya together while eating halo-halo.

Bonus: I think getting to watch her four-year-old daughter get into the movie moved me as much as the movie did! Watching this little girl gaze at Raya gave me hope. She’s growing up in a very different world than the one I grew up in, a world where “beautiful” includes her and she’s empowered to be strong.

(And in case you’re wondering, Raya and the Last Dragon was wonderful and lived up to the hype!)

I’ll leave you with a couple thoughts to consider:

Representation matters because people matter. Every single person is created in the image of God. Our ethnicities are a part of the way we reflect the Imago Dei. To diminish anyone’s ethnicity is to diminish the Imago Dei in them.

Representation for people of color doesn’t mean removing representation of White people. There is space for all of us! The attitude that White people lose if people of color get a seat/voice is scarcity mentality and is antithetical to the Gospel and the Kingdom.