I don't think as a society, as a nation we would ever wear swastikas openly again, but aligning ourselves with the kind of rhetoric or the the the kind of language that's being used and ascribed to certain groups of people or certain religions can be repeated.
I didn't want to be trapped in an idea of replicating other 'Star Trek' characters; especially Vulcans. But my love and I have Spock paraphernalia all over our house. He's an omnipresence in our lives, we adore him.
You can't escape 'Star Trek' influence, especially characters you literally grew up with.
Film and television are major vehicles for American storytelling, and America is the biggest exporter and influencer in the world in terms of telling stories.
Not everybody's journey is easy, and it wouldn't be worthwhile if you can't see what you gained without realizing what kind of battles you've been through, what kind of scars you have.
I think you can assume because our pool of Asian-Americans actresses or actors - men and women - is pretty small, that whatever project is out there I probably have been asked to audition or I probably chose to not go in it for various aspects.
In period pieces or genre pieces, those have to be set in historical truths. But, science fiction has different game pieces. And with those game pieces come other stories we're not familiar with. So, science fiction teaches us how to relate to outsiders, to foreigners, and to not approach any of that with fear, but a genuine curiosity.
The thing I found in correlation with my studies as a history major was that experience taught me you have to figure out your background, where you come from, who you are, and what you want. All of that propelled me into following acting because I had to develop characters as well as develop characters' history which is most important.
I think that is what all ethnic actors aspire to - to just play a woman who falls in love, or works as a clerk, or whatever - and then, if you want to, to have that luxury to bring in the cultural heritage.
So if they happen to be over the age of 35 and they're male? They're probably going to recognize me from 'The Karate Kid Part II.'
I'm looking for projects where race is not an issue.
I did not want to become an actor.
The wonderful John Avildsen was a hero and father figure who was really present in my life even though we didn't have day-to-day or year-to-year.
I'm much too egotistical to move outside the acting realm.
We have to look beyond what we see as the typical, the 'normal package,' and just see people as who they are. We all have to learn and get along a little better in society.
The Asian woman in Hollywood movies has usually been one of two extremes - totally submissive or totally ruthless. In either case her primary function has been decorative.
Asian males have not been appreciated for what they are. They have always been dissed for what they are not.
JACL has always been at the very forefront of making sure citizens' civil rights remain intact. They fight wholeheartedly against discrimination, prejudice and racial bias and they always provide a calm voice during turbulent times.
Our old stories happen to be your new stories. The stories that you're seeing as immigrant stories are your grandparents' stories, are your great-grandparents' stories. You just happen to be separated from them a little bit.
The only reason I even learned Japanese was to figure out what my parents were getting me for Christmas.
