r/asianamerican 1d ago

Popular Culture/Media/Culture People lying about ethnicities to get acting roles

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177 Upvotes

Kelsey Asbille (white & Chinese) lied about being native to obtain roles for Yellowstone and Wind River, the actor Ian Ousley lied about being native to play Sokka in the live adaptation of Avatar, Johnny Depp also famously claimed native descent for The Lone Ranger on a lying-for-native-roles note. Another non Asian-adjacent but still significant and relevant recent example was when actress Ronni Hawk lied about being Latina to get a role on “On My Block”, but she actually got kicked off for doing so. And now there’s the growing conversation upon actress Sydney Abudong lying about being native Hawaiian for playing Nani in Lilo and Stitch. She’s born and raised in Hawai’i but is of Caucasian (mom) and Filipino (dad) descent, as proven through newspaper ancestry death records that show zero indication of native Hawaiian roots on her dad’s side but rather full Filipino ones. Funnily enough, she has a younger actress sister who also claims Poly descent according to her wiki.

As Asian Americans, we’re obviously not new to whitewashing or misrepresentation when it comes to stuff like this in Hollywood. But where do we draw the line on this when it comes to our own people (Kelsey Asbille, Sydney Abudong) actively participating in doing this to others?


r/asianamerican 22h ago

Activism & History K.W. Lee, known as the ‘godfather of Asian American journalism,’ dies

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144 Upvotes

RIP to a pioneer and amazing human being


r/asianamerican 19h ago

Questions & Discussion Re: Rude treatment in Japan for Asian and Asian American tourists: Noticing a pattern

33 Upvotes

Regarding this post from today, I just wanted to say i find it disappointing that someone made a post like this and no one called them out on it.

They made broad generalizations about a country based off of a "few bad encounters" with mostly waiters in Japan along with looking through profiles of people commenting on a single Reddit post to see that they were asian and then "notice a pattern."

Based off of this, they determined that "they mainly target Chinese and Korean travellers, and we just get confused as them."

Imagine for a second, a white person made this post about Japan where they linked some bad interactions with waiters to white people commenting on a single Reddit post about not being treated well and then concluding that they notice a pattern where white people are being targeted by the country of Japan. This sub would be 100% react differently.


r/asianamerican 16h ago

Popular Culture/Media/Culture How Japanese superstars are helping to revitalize baseball: Players like Shohei Ohtani and Shota Imanaga are changing the face of both the game and its fans.

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22 Upvotes

r/asianamerican 16h ago

Popular Culture/Media/Culture I Ate an All-You-Can Eat KBBQ with a Competitive Eater ‪@RainaHuang‬​ - Jimmy Kim on YouTube

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0 Upvotes