When I first sat down at the keyboard, I enjoyed inventing all sorts of characters. A little red-haired girl who can tell the future a in bowl of popcorn. A beautiful half-Chinese, half-Black divorcée who decides to revenge-date every guy she’d turned down before she got married. As author Charles de Lint says, “Why not use the whole palette?”
Then I saw a survey of actors appearing on-screen in big American movies the year that the first Avatar came out, and it was #sowhite. A few Black and Latinx actors were allowed in, but Asians were so rare that the chance of glimpsing us on-screen was statistically equal to spotting a blue-skinned alien. And I’m guessing the aliens got better lines.
That ain’t right. So I invented Dr. Hope Sze, the kickass resident physician who not only helps cure cancer but catches killers at hospitals in Montreal, Canada. I focus on Hope as a doctor, an amateur detective, an eye-rolling daughter, and a love interest, not on her ethnic origins. So that’s the first secret: think of your character as a human being first.
Are you feeling inspired, especially after Everything Everywhere All at Once? Cool. Just make sure to avoid these traps.
The Big Zero: no Asian characters at all
(Often paired with that specialty of no diverse characters, period.)
Choosing books where every single character in your book white and straight and cis and heterosexual doesn’t mean you’re not racist. It means you’re choosing Aryanville.
Yes, I know you don’t want to misrepresent anyone, but this is not the solution.
Yellow Peril
You allowed one of us onto your pages or on your screen as a Fu Manchu, Dragon Lady, Tiger Mom, Triad member, or however you want to demonize us as evil foreigners who must be defeated. Not cool. P.S. Minus 200 if you refer to your Asian character as sinister.
Martial arts punching bag
Bruce Lee broke the mold, but then “martial artist” became the only acceptable role for Asian men and then women. We’re okay as cannon fodder for the white hero to beat up. We can be funny like Jackie Chan, but we don’t get to play romantic leads and have sex until Crazy Rich Asians.
Me love you long time!
Your Asian character exists to fall in love/service a white man. How would you like to be cast as a permanent hooker? (I had to look up “Me love you long time.” It comes from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket in 1987, but this trope must have started during the Vietnam War or earlier.)
Sage or Nerd
Young nerd: so good at math! Wow! Wears glasses, exclaims over, and sympathizes with the white protagonist’s exploits. Never gets laid, or only by someone equally shy and less conventionally attractive.
Old sage: “Wax on, wax off,” said Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid, and every other wise, inscrutable genius living on a snowy mountain in order to impart pearls to the white protagonist. Barf.
Pan-Asian
If your protagonist comes from an East Asian country, which one? If you pick China, remember that it’s the third biggest country in the world with a vast history and cultural and geographic variation. Do you recognize the autonomy of Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Tibet? Why or why not?
For example, Hope is Chinese. Her mom’s family spoke Cantonese, her dad’s spoke Mandarin, so Hope and her brother grew up speaking English and French.
Mute
I won a free audio book from a popular white author and looked forward to it … until I got to the Asian man rotating in her bedroom. The mute Asian man.
I stopped listening.
Obviously, many people found this entertaining, or at least acceptable. Ask yourself why.
The first time I saw the movie Pitch Perfect, I smiled at Hana Mae Lee beatboxing. By the third movie, I wondered why the Asian woman was the one who only seemed to whisper, peep, or rarely get a one-liner. It seems like her character is popular because some can relate to her silence, but why does she have to wait until the third movie to speak in a normal voice?
It may seem convenient to have a character with melanin play the silent background to your heroic protagonist, but please rethink this.
Dead
I picked up what I assumed would be a cozy mystery, only to find the killer was a very knowledgeable Asian woman (#4) who’d fallen in love and been wronged by a white man long ago (#3) and had committed murder for semi-noble reasons, but don’t worry, she kills herself before she can get arrested (#6).
Death and suicide shouldn’t be the default ending for Asian people.
Oh, and don’t forget the cover. As Elaine Hsieh Chou points out, brainstorm beyond flowers and chopsticks. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/acceptable-book-cover-subjects-for-books-written-by-east-asian-women-authors
How do you avoid these traps? I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Some readers accuse me and Hope of not being Chinese enough. On the other hand, another reader complained that I had too many Chinese characters because Hope’s parents and brother AND boyfriend were all ethnically Chinese! Quelle horreur! (Sarcasm)
I do try to make Hope as funny and as realistic as possible. Lived experience, right? No, Hope doesn’t only eat Chinese food. Yes, her mother drives her ’round the bend (to be fair, that seems like a cross-cultural problem). Yes, I ask my more-Chinese friends when I have questions.
Some studies show that reading creates empathy, so reading is in and of itself a good start. Now you can select more carefully what you read, watch, and write. Educate yourself. Think of Asians and all people as human beings, same as you. Don’t assume you won a get out of jail free card because one friend said it was okay. Ask more than one. Hire sensitivity readers, and consider more than one if you’ve got the budget.
Try to do better every time, and I’ll do the same.
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