Lucy Liu Stars in “Rosemead,” a True Story of Immigrant Mothers Facing Fear and Mental Health Challenges
Stories
November 25, 2025
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Lucy Liu is once again bringing us a powerful performance with Rosemead, a film that has been picked up by Vertical for a December theatrical release. The story follows a mother who begins to see troubling changes in her teenage son, opening the door to a deeper look at fear, love, and mental health.
Recently, the film gathered strong early interest after drawing a full audience at a special screening held at the Metreon in San Francisco. Hosted by Dave Lu, the event sparked conversations about topics often avoided in public spaces, especially within immigrant communities.
With its growing list of festival honors, positive reviews, and a narrative inspired by real events, Rosemead is already being recognized as one of Liu’s most powerful and personal performances to date.
Image Source: BBC
A Story Built on Fear and Family Pressure
At the heart of Rosemead is a mother who becomes concerned as her son’s behavior shifts in unsettling ways. What begins as quiet anxiety slowly grows into a frightening urgency as she realizes the situation may be more dangerous than she imagined.
As her fear rises, she faces the painful question of how far a parent can go to protect the child they love. The tension builds with each scene, making her inner struggle feel both real and universal.
The story takes place within a Chinese American household where cultural expectations and unspoken worries create additional layers of pressure. Lucy Liu captures these emotions with precision, while newcomer Lawrence Shou brings a raw, unpredictable intensity that deepens the film’s emotional impact.
Image Source: The Traveler’s Take
Building Momentum Through Festival Wins
Before reaching theaters, Rosemead had already made a strong impression on the festival circuit. Its premiere at Tribeca drew praise for its gripping approach to storytelling and its standout performances.
The film’s momentum continued as it won Best Narrative Feature at the Bentonville Film Festival, adding to its early recognition. It gained even more attention after earning the Prix du Public UBS audience award at the Locarno Film Festival.
During its time at Locarno, Lucy Liu also received a Career Achievement Award that highlighted her long-standing influence in the industry. Vertical’s Peter Jarowey praised her work for its emotional depth, while also recognizing director Eric Lin’s bold and confident vision in his feature debut.
Image Source: Yahoo
A Strong Screening at the San Francisco Metreon
The event at the Metreon brought together creators, film lovers, and local community members for an open discussion about the upcoming release. The gathering served as a space for people to share expectations, explore the film’s themes, and talk about the real-life issues it aims to portray.
The audience noted how the film reflects real family struggles, especially those found in immigrant households. Its grounded approach to fear and uncertainty sparked discussions about mental health and cultural expectations.
After the screening, conversations centered on Liu’s controlled yet deeply affecting performance. Lawrence Shou also drew attention for his breakout role, adding to the anticipation for the film’s one-week run in selected theaters this December.
Experience the film in theaters and see why it’s already drawing strong early interest. Rosemead is set to premiere in select theaters on December 5, 2025 in New York City; December 12, 2025 in Los Angeles, and more cities to follow on January 9, 2026.
Many people know that improving the website loading speed by 0.5 sec is invisible to the users. But it’s still one of the essential search engine factors they use in their ranking algorithms. Also, many web users may use a slow Internet connection, even in the USA and Europe. That is why improving website loading speed is a high-priority task for web development teams. How to improve the website speed?
What is website speed?
Technically the term website loading speed is incorrect because it is about page loading speed.
In short, website loading speed refers to how quickly the content and UI elements of the specific page load when a user visits it.
Several factors can influence specific page speed:
The amount and size of the images and videos are contained on the page
UI animations
Themes and plugins are installed on the site
Front-end and server-side technologies are used
The code quality
Hosting or server
But you must know that the user’s Internet connection also affects the web page speed.
Start with website speed testing
You may start the website speed test with your smartphone and mobile Internet connection. Does your site load quickly enough? Does your site look mobile-friendly? This test helps you to identify critical speed issues and how responsive the design of your website is.
But using a smartphone test can’t tell about a website’s score in terms of the website loading speed. Also, it can’t help to identify the causes of slow website loading. That is why you should use tools to test and measure your website’s loading speed.
The most used tool is Google Pagespeed Insights. It is easy to use and provides you with the most critical information. Look at the snapshot for our website.
AHN’s team developed this site. You can see good scores and no critical issues that could affect the website loading speed.
If Google Pagespeed Insights identifies issues, it will provide recommendations for increasing the website’s performance.
This free tool allows testing the site’s mobile and desktop versions. You can use the Lighthouse tool that is built-in Chrome browser—Press F12 to run web developer tools and choose the Lighthouse tool to test the page.
Some tools are free, but other tools can be payable. Many web professionals use Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals reports because it is usually enough.
Guidelines to improve the website loading speed
The Lighthouse tool (Google Pagespeed Insights) assessed your site as poor (score is less than 50) or as a website that needs improvements (score from 50 to 89). A web developer must look at the tool’s recommendations and fix issues.
This guide will help you to understand which factors influence website speed and how to increase it.
Optimize the images
Surprisingly, images are one of the most common issues affecting website loading speed. The main reason is that content managers do not pay attention to the size and format of the images when uploading them to the website.
There is a typical image optimization process.
Reduce the image size.
Photos, images, or graphics on the web pages improve engagement. But if you use large files, the images slow down a website.
Compressing images using tools is one way to reduce image size without affecting quality. Another way to reduce the image size is to adjust the image size based on user display properties.
Choose the right image format.
Look at this image. It shows the difference between a zoomed-in vector image L and a raster image R.
As you can see, vector images are preferable options as they are resolution-independent and always deliver excellent results.
If you use raster images, a web developer should serve different image sizes to other devices. But bear in mind that serving desktop-sized images to mobile phones can use 2–4x more data than needed.
Use WebP images
When Facebook switched to WebP, they noticed a 25-35% filesize savings for JPEGs and an 80% for PNGs.
How to convert images to WebP? Usually, web developers use the cwebp command-line tool (for simple projects) or the Imagemin WebP plugin(for complex projects).
Replace animated GIFs with video.
GIFs aren’t a good choice when you need a fast website because their size can be 10-15 MB.
It takes a lot of time to upload a GIF file. That is why web professionals convert GIFs into video files (MPEG or WebM).
Use image CDNs to optimize images.
Image content delivery networks (CDNs) specialize in transforming, optimizing, and delivering images. They are excellent at optimizing images and can yield a 40–80% savings in image file size. Image CDNs work like API, making it easy to create variations of an image for different use cases by indicating parameters like size, format, and quality.
Use lazy loading
Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-critical resources while the web page loads. In practice, the image lazy loading loads lightweight placeholder images at page load and replaces them with lazily-loaded images when they’re scrolled into the viewport.
Using lazy loading makes sense if you use many media files on your site. Web developers can use a variety of ways to implement lazy loadings, such as browser-level lazy loading, Intersection Observer (JavaScript), or CSS. If your website is built on WordPress, you can use plugins.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Content delivery networks (CDNs) improve site performance using web servers distributed across various locations. These servers retrieve content from the website server and provide website content to users with regard to their location. CDNs reduce server load and handle traffic spikes.
Also, CDNs allow caching resources on their servers. As a result, the resources are delivered more quickly. Cashing also reduces the load on the website server.
To choose a good CDN, you should focus on its performance, security, analytics features, support, and pricing.
You need to know that CDN performance can vary significantly depending on geography, time of day, and different events. That is why predicting the exact performance you’ll get from a CDN is difficult.
Choosing a good CDN depends on the type of your site (e-commerce, corporate website, blog), user locations, and your budget.
Prioritize loading resources
Not every website resource has the same degree of importance, which is why browsers attempt to make a guess at the most important resources to load first. The problem is browsers could use the wrong priority for website resources. For example, loading scripts before CSS.
Web developers can use different ways to influence browsers’ priority-making process.
If a web developer adds the <script> tag in the page’s <head>, Chrome will load at a high priority. But using the async attribute changes it to low priority.
Also, a web developer can use <link rel=”preload”> (informs the browser that a resource should start getting fetched as soon as possible), <link rel=”preconnect”> (informs the browser that you’d like the process to start as soon as possible), and <link rel=”prefetch”> (it tries to make something non-critical happen earlier if there’s a chance) for other resources.
To make everything right, a web developer should know the browser’s priority for each resource. For example, to know Chrome’s priority, you need to press F12 to run DevTools and find the Network panel.
These priorities help to understand how much relative importance the browser attributes to resources. A web developer can influence the browser to assign a different priority. For example, if an image is a part of the initial render, a web developer prioritizes it higher than an image that starts offscreen.
Optimize CSS code
CSS code must be loaded before the browser renders the website page because it is a render-blocking resource. If these web pages contain unnecessarily large CSS code, it takes longer to render them.
There are two main techniques that web developers use.
The first is deferring non-critical CSS. Many non-critical styles apply to content that’s not immediately visible, for example, paragraphs inside the accordions. A web developer can defer this non-critical code.
The second is minifying CSS. Minification CSS files is a technique that reduces unnecessary code, comments, whitespaces, and indentation in CSS files. A professional web developer can safely remove unnecessary characters and reduce CSS file size without affecting website rendering.
If web developers minify CSS files, you will see that recommendation “Minify CSS” moved to the “Passed Audits” section of the Lighthouse report.
Optimize JavaScript code
JavaScript code is a critical part of modern website design. On the other hand, using JavaScript code may slow down a website’s loading speed.
A web developer should analyze the Lighthouse report to fix JavaScript issues and speed up a website. There are most common issues and solutions.
First, the JavaScript code used on the website is a significant source of tasks. What is a task? A task is any discrete piece of work that the browser does and impacts the website’s performance. It can be rendering, parsing HTML and CSS, and running JavaScript code.
Some tasks can be too long (that take more than 50 milliseconds), and a web developer should break up such tasks. In other words, a web developer needs to divide a long task into smaller tasks that take less time using one of the task management strategies like the async attribute, manually defer code execution, yield only when necessary, and others. Choosing a strategy depends on the main website features you’d want to consider when managing tasks because it is about usability and how users interact with a website.
Minification JS code is another way to improve a website’s speed. To minify JS code a web developer should remove whitespace and any code that is not necessary to create a perfectly valid code file.
JS code compression is the process of modifying data using a specific algorithm. Most web developers use Gzip for server and client interactions, but Brotli is a newer compression algorithm that helps to achieve even better compression results than Gzip.
Also, we recommend using modern JavaScript to avoid reducing the website’s loading speed.
Modern JavaScript means syntax supported by all modern browsers such as Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari. But using modern Java Script requires high-skilled web developers who have experience in advanced front-end and web app technologies.
Move a website to better hosting.
In some cases, the leading cause of slow website speed is hosting. A website owner must choose fast hosting to optimize the website’s performance.
Several solutions can be used to host a website.
Shared hosting is the most popular solution because it is cheap. But shared hosting means that you share the server’s CPU and RAM with many other sites that are also hosted on this server. If you need more RAM and CPU because your site attracts many visitors or use one of the modern frameworks, you need Virtual Private Servers (VPS) hosting or a dedicated server.
Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and dedicated servers are faster than shared hosting. VPS is fit needs of many business and e-commerce sites because it uses multiple servers for content distribution and provides your own part of the virtual server.
Using a dedicated server is the most expensive solution because you need to rent or buy a server and pay for the system administrator’s services.
Now alternative solutions are also available for website owners. You can use cloud solutions like Microsoft Azure, Google, or AWS. Cloud providers provide quality services that can scale on demand for your needs.
Choosing a hosting provider is not easy but worth the effort.
Conclusions
Currently, a website’s loading speed is a vital factor that search engines assess, affecting website traffic and, as a result, business revenue.
You can test your website speed using one of the tools to know if improvements are needed. 89 score and below means your site’s performance needs to be improved. Image optimization and minification of CSS and JS can speed up a website. But as you can see, it is not an easy task.
Also, hiring skilled web developers who can write quality, optimized code is important. Because it is an almost impossible job to optimize a website that was created by low-skilled web specialists. Re-developing the website from scratch becomes easier, faster, and cheaper in this case.
“Over time, I realized that speaking and understanding Chinese wasn’t just a ‘useful skill’—it is my superpower and key to belonging,” says Cheryl Mainland, Founder & CEO of Dragon Academy. Her fluency in Chinese has been a source of identity and has played a key role in her journey—from understanding her cultural heritage to excelling at Harvard in East Asia Studies and negotiating successful global business deals.
Recognizing the power of language to bridge cultures and connect with 1.3 billion native Chinese speakers, Cheryl is now committed to creating an engaging and interactive multi-media platform for children and adults worldwide to learn Chinese through Dragon Academy.
At its core, Dragon Academy is an epic tale of nine multicultural teens journeying through six mystical realms brimming with ancient legends, mythical beasts, and dragons – all united in a quest to bridge worlds. This story is told across multiple media formats and channels, including a book series, social media content, an AI animation series, and other cultural initiatives. Complementing their adventure is a highly gamified app that transforms Chinese language learning into an exciting, immersive, (and even addictive) experience.
A mother of three, serial entrepreneur, lifelong adventurer, and avid surfer, Cheryl has become an inspiration to many. She has been featured in top media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Vogue, Tatler, WWD, and numerous other prestigious publications.
Cheryl embodies the essence of a third-culture kid. Born in Taiwan, she is half-Chinese, half-American, and raised across Asia, she navigated the complexities of identity, language, and belonging from an early age.
Cheryl with her maternal and paternal grandmothers Taipei, Taiwan, 1983 (Image Source: Cheryl Mainland)
“Like many of us, I grew up straddling two worlds. The ultimate translator of languages, cultures, generations. I carry with me the collective memory of (boring) Saturday Chinese school, the struggle of keeping up with my Chinese lessons, and the challenge of celebrating my heritage while forging my own path,” Cheryl says. “After having kids, I witnessed their similar struggles – nothing has changed.” She recognized that the traditional methods of learning Chinese – endless hours of copying hanzi characters on square grid paper (田字格) – have experienced minimal change over the centuries, relying on rote memorization rather than engagement.
Not wanting her children to face the same language learning struggles she faced (and hundreds of thousands of other Chinese learners), Cheryl is embracing this as an opportunity to spark a cultural movement that breathes new life into the Chinese language and culture. Dragon Academy’s strategy ignites a passion for learning through an epic narrative delivered via a highly gamified app, an AI mini-series, a book series, social media content, and a future film adaptation. Each of the multimedia platform components captures the story-based enthusiasm, teaching Chinese through nine proprietary building block methods that make learning Chinese fun, engaging, and truly relevant.
Dragon Academy Universe: the foundation of a highly gamified Chinese language learning app, book series, cartoons, feature films, documentaries, merchandise, and console games. (Image Source: Cheryl Mainland)
Cheryl’s Entrepreneurial Journey: Empowering the Masses
Throughout Cheryl’s entrepreneurial ventures, a constant theme has been empowering communities by identifying unmet needs and transforming the “uncool” into “cool” through innovative solutions. From dressing corporate women in clothes that boosted their self-confidence in the boardroom (The Fold London), to inspiring tweens and teens “to wear their invisible crown” on all special occasions (PromGirl.com), to reimagining sun-protective fashion—proving that staying safe in the sun doesn’t mean sacrificing style (Mott50)—her work consistently uplifts and inspires.
Most recently, to celebrate the launch of Dragon Academy Book 1 during Lunar New Year 2025, Cheryl partnered with artist Archie Geotina to honor the 46 million-strong Chinese diaspora through Pearls, an art series. Chinese Pearls features three generations of female surfers from diverse Chinese heritage – Indonesian Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, mixed-Chinese families, adoptees, and expats – riding Bali’s iconic waves in modern QiPao, empowering the community and highlighting its resilience, heritage, and unity.
A Future for the Community
“As an Asian American entrepreneur, Asian American mom, and a lifelong advocate for bridging cultures, I resonate deeply with AHN’s mission to uplift and empower the global Asian diaspora,” Cheryl affirms.
She draws a parallel between Dragon Academy’s goal to reignite the next generation’s connection to their heritage and AHN’s commitment to rewriting narratives and celebrating Asian excellence. When asked about her future plans, Cheryl confidently states, “We are on an ambitious mission to increase the percentage of the world that speaks Chinese by 5% over the next five years.”
An estimated 5 million people started learning Japanese because of Manga, 15 million took up Korean because of K-pop, Dragon Academy is set to start a Chinese language movement. By juxtaposing storytelling and technology, Dragon Academy is approaching Chinese language learning from an “obsess, learn, master” order.
“Imagine a world where kids want to learn Chinese because they see it as their ultimate superpower and key to belonging. That’s the future we’re building,” exclaims Cheryl.
And the journey is just beginning. Dragon Academy Book 1 launched at the beginning of this year. The highly gamified learning app, immersive AI mini-series, and a host of exciting cultural initiatives are currently in development. The first round of external investment has commenced – seeking visionary, like-minded investors to join this transformative movement. Dragon Academy is poised to redefine the landscape of Chinese language learning and cultural exploration.
DRAGON ACADEMY “Traditional Scene.” The OG Dragon Keepers, ancestors of the 9 multicultural teenage protagonists of the Dragon Academy Universe. (Artist: Andrew Archer)
The path to success in content creation is never paved with roses, and no one understands this quite like Ami Desai. From her beginnings in broadcast journalism to becoming a well-known beauty and lifestyle influencer, Ami has shaped her career through authenticity, adaptability, and a strong dedication to representation.
As an Indian-American raised in Los Angeles, Ami grew up as a first-generation South Asian immigrant, a generation that deeply felt the need for greater South Asian representation in the media. After earning her degree from UC Berkeley and a master’s from Boston University, she built a solid media foundation through roles at CNN and Inside Edition. During this time behind the scenes, she discovered her passion for on-camera hosting, eventually landing her dream role as the host of the first digital show for Oprah.com. In 2011, Ami made a pivotal move by hosting a luxury travel show in India, which allowed her to reconnect with her roots and gain international exposure.
Simultaneously, Ami began building her own beauty business with her family. She went on to become one of the first South Asian content creators to collaborate with major brands like Toyota and Pampers on large campaigns, while also highlighting important Indian traditions and holidays such as Diwali. Recognizing the lack of representation for her ethnicity in the media and beauty industries, Ami founded her life’s mission, merging her experiences as a host, makeup artist, and mom to help other women advocate for themselves while balancing various roles. This gap in representation became her motivation to amplify underrepresented voices and promote diversity.
In 2016, Ami took a leap of faith, leaving traditional media behind to forge her own path in the influencer space. Despite pitching herself as a contributor or expert to various outlets, she faced rejection, which drove her to create her own content on social media platforms. Through this experience, she realized that content creation involved more than just posting visually appealing images—it required strategic planning, engagement tracking, and brand pitching. Even as the industry pushed her to narrow her niche, Ami confidently embraced her multifaceted identity, sharing content that reflected her life as a mother, beauty expert, and entrepreneur. This authenticity deeply resonated with her audience, ultimately helping her build a loyal fanbase connecting creators and audiences.
In the latest episode of the Creators Podcast, presented by Asian Hustle Network in collaboration with Meta Prosper, Ami shares a story of resilience, adaptability, and a deep dedication to her community. Whether you’re an aspiring content creator, a beauty lover, or someone who enjoys learning about authentic journeys, this episode is filled with valuable insights and inspiration.
The original “Charlie’s Angels” was a successful hit, not only because it made $93 million and grossed more than $264 million at global offices, but it also created exposure for Asian American representation.
Lucy Liu plays Alex Munday, a strategist, expert martial artist, and agent. Munday’s parents were Havard professors of economics and philosophy, and she, at an early age, was a child prodigy excelling at chess, equestrianism, fencing, archery, and gymnastics. Besides that, she holds a medical degree, spent her teenage years learning with a Tibetan guru, danced with the Stuttgart Ballet, and was a part-time aerospace engineer and on-call consultant for NASA.
Lucy Liu as Alex Munday in ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (Image source: ‘Charlie’s Angels’ – 2000)
Does the entire introduction sound familiar? Swap out the name Alex Munday for your overachieving Asian cousin, sibling, or the “top Asian kid” your parents always compare you to, and you’d likely end up with a strikingly similar description.
It is undeniable that contemporary films, comedies, memes, and other forms of content have taken extensive lengths to represent Asian culture. Yet, they have also perpetuated a troubling stereotype. To complicate matters, many within the Asian community unknowingly reinforce these portrayals, cementing these narratives even further.
The article’s purpose is not to mock or diminish the accomplishments of any individual, community, or effort in striving for representation and equality. On the contrary, it is essential to celebrate the contributions of the many talents and media that have significantly advanced global awareness and appreciation of Asian culture and heritage. Hence, the article wishes to provide a nuanced perspective on contemporary topics while providing debate on the norms, beliefs, and habits created in our society.
What is the Model Minority Myth?
According to the University of Michigan, Densho, and other sources, after World War II, the United States underwent significant changes in its laws and policies to address mounting international criticism of racial prejudice and ongoing protests from ethnic communities within the country.
“Success Story, Japanese American Style” by William Petersen (Image source: Smithsonian APA)
As PBS illustrates, new regulations like the Chinese Exclusion Act shifted toward dismantling exclusionary measures and advocating for Asian communities and immigrants, particularly skilled and educated migrants. The University of Michigan further exemplifies, articles like “Success Story, Japanese American Style” by William Petersen began to appear – praising how despite years of racial prejudice and discrimination, Japanese Americans were still able to achieve great socioeconomic status thanks to hard work and other cultural values of discipline and compliance to social hierarchy.
By focusing on the facets of income, education level, and low crime rates as the definition of success instead of underlining economic and social factors, Asian Americans are often portrayed as hardworking, disciplined, and intelligent—a concept scholars refer to as the model minority.
Model Minority Myth in Silencing Activism
While this stereotype may appear beneficial on the surface, Ted-Ed, in collaboration with Densho, emphasizes that there are no “good” stereotypes. As cited by PBS, cultural historian Robert G. Lee argues that such inclusion does not promote equity but instead undermines activism and disregards the struggles of other marginalized groups.
This is significant because the model minority myth obscures disparities within the diverse Asian American community, perpetuating the misconception that Asian identity is monolithic, often reduced to just China, Korea, and Japan. Furthermore, the stereotype marginalizes individuals who fail to meet its expectations, silencing those who speak out against it.
Societal pressure on Asian individuals (Image source: Kamanaoleeward)
For instance, an Asian student with subpar grades might be labeled as lazy rather than being understood in the context of contributing factors like economic hardship or family struggles. The danger of accepting “positive” stereotypes lies in their ability to perpetuate harmful narratives and create unrealistic standards, fostering a cycle of self-framing that damages both individuals and the broader Asian community.
When Representation Unintentionally Reinforces Stereotypes
Let’s use another example to understand this dichotomy.
Ke Huy Quan, the American actor of Vietnamese descent, is well known in the notorious “Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom”, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, and “Loki” Season 2. His selection as an exemplar highlights how his journey encapsulates the model minority stereotype and demonstrates how Asian communities may unconsciously perpetuate such narratives.
In “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”, Quan portrays Short Round, a clever Japanese sidekick aiding Dr. Jones on his adventures. Ironically, this character aligns with the early stages of the model minority stereotype. Short Round comes from a disadvantaged background, surviving through pickpocketing, but his association with Dr. Jones transforms him into a more thoughtful and capable individual, elevating his social status by the film’s conclusion.
In “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, Quan embraces the archetype of the modern Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan—a martial arts expert and mentor to the protagonist, reminiscent of Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid”. Finally in Loki Quan plays Ouroboros, a lovable and intelligent technician who once was a writer and a teacher of theoretical physics at Cal Tech.
Ke Huy Quan (Image source: The Independent)
In a meta and somewhat ironic twist, both Ke Huy Quan’s career and the roles he portrays reflect how Asians may unknowingly perpetuate the stereotypes they are often subject to. While Quan’s rise to fame is a testament to his dedication and perseverance, his portrayal of characters like the “witty young sidekick” learning from a Caucasian hero, the martial arts mentor, and the intellectual expert, inadvertently reinforces the very tropes that have shaped the Asian image in media. Despite his immense talent and the love he has earned within the Asian community, these roles contribute to the ongoing cycle of cultural expectations and representation.
Breaking the Myth of the Model Asian
It is entirely debatable that it is not the fault of the actors. We admire Ke Huy Quan for his remarkable journey and his representation of the Asian community. Nevertheless, through observing content produced by modern media, one will recognize certain tropes from the Asian community.
Steven He satirizes Asian parents, Jimmy O. Yang joking about Asian habits, Lily in “Pitch Perfect”, Rajesh Koothrappali in “The Big Bang Theory”, Louis and Jessia Huang in “Fresh Off The Boat”, and the list goes on. Even the news you see about an “Asian underdog politician” rising to power or the “overlooked Asian business owner” continues to reinforce these themes. While these portrayals are well-intended, they still fall into a pattern of representation that, ironically, reflects the very stereotypes they aim to challenge.
These stereotypes create an environment of competition and segregation in the Asian community, where individuals feel pressured to conform to a specific image. To maintain an idealized representation, certain behaviors become expected, specific careers are favored, and everyone feels compelled to excel in particular areas.
A ramification of this mindset would be far-reaching. For example, economic struggles may be ignored, as the stereotype dictates that all Asians should be successful. Mental health issues among children are dismissed because it is assumed that the Asian parenting and education system naturally fosters resilience. Furthermore, social problems like drug use or teenage pregnancy are seen as impossible within this community because Asians are stereotypically perceived as disciplined and morally upright. These misconceptions, while seemingly small, perpetuate harmful beliefs and ultimately hinder inclusivity, reinforcing negative stereotypes that shape the broader perception of the Asian community.
Shaping Our Own Story in Media and Beyond
“There are more Asians than any kind of race on the planet. That means we are the majority, we dictate normal behavior,” Ronny Cheng states in his comedy skit.
Asia comprises 59% of the world’s population, hence we are the majority. However, this work is not a manifesto calling for the unification of an ideal but serves as a reflection of the society we live in. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping our perception. The argument is not to elicit a conspiracy theory but to help readers ponder the question, how do we want to be represented? Thanks to pioneers like Lucy Liu and Ke Huy Quan, the Asian community has gradually won more exposure from media outlets. Now, it is the turn of the new generation to represent the Asian community in all its diversity and complexity.
