By Albert Leung, Staff Writer
 
Prior to the Yellow Face premier at the Guthrie Theater on Feb. 6, 2010, Mu Performing Arts held a panel discussion addressing common trends of how Asians and Asians Americans are portrayed in the media. The discussion, called Asians in the Media, featured a panel of media members, actors, academics and award winning playwright David Henry Hwang.
 
Flanked beside Hwang included local thespian and the star of Yellow Face Randy Reyes, Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper’s theatre critic Graydon Royce, University of Minnesota – Asian American Studies Professor Josephine Lee and Star Tribune reporter Thomas Lee.
 
The panel, moderated by Minnesota’s Public Radio’s Marianne Combs, comprehensively discussed the historic examples of Asian stereotyping such as “yellow peril” and the “model minority” which were perpetuated throughout the media and entertainment industries. The panel also discussed where and if Asian Americans are properly represented in today’s media.
 
“Racial stereotyping of Asians has been going on for centuries,” said Josephine Lee. “When people often talk about racial stereotypes, they often refer to ‘yellow peril’ which is the enemy, hostile Asian country which arose during the rise of Japan with its political and military prowess.”
 
Many of ‘yellow peril’ images and portrayals were most famously propagandized during World War II, and have since been recycled among other ethnic Asian groups such as Koreans and Vietnamese said Lee. Most recently, North Korea has fallen into this stereotypical portrayal explained Lee.
 
“These kinds of images have been endlessly disseminated over time. Imagine the impact it has on people who has never met an Asian before, which is true in some parts of this country,” said Lee.
 
Lee believes that these stereotypes continue to persist because they have seemingly been commodified by the media to an extent where Asians do not seem to protest it. She said that if someone was to portray yellow face there would probably be no protest where as black face portrayals are rightfully and vehemently protested.
 
Yellow Face creator David Henry Hwang touched on the difficulty in finding “authentic” Asian representation in the media. According to Hwang, it is difficult to have one or two individuals represent an extremely diverse group of individuals who fall under the Asian umbrella. Similar to any diverse group, there are many types of people and many points-of-view. There can be no one representation of Asian which can be equivalent to the masses.
 
Hwang discussed how reality television has brought much more diversity in the media than scripted programming has.
 
“One can argue that producers need to distinguish the different contestants on reality television and using a wide range of color pallets is one way to do so,” Hwang said. “Whatever the reason, it still allows opportunity for more representation and the fact that people do watch these shows tells me that the audience is ready for a diverse group of players on their television shows and entertainment.”
 
From an actor’s perspective, local actor Randy Reyes shared his personal experiences working as an Asian American actor. Reyes spoke about his acting idol and noted that he had no real Asian actors whom he could look up to. Instead he had particular admiration to other minority actors such as Will Smith and Denzel Washington whom he admired because they played the complex roles which he wanted to portray.
 
Following college, Reyes lived in New York City to pursue an acting career but found many unexpected difficulties in finding roles as an Asian American actor.
 
“When I was living in New York, going out for movie or television parts was embarrassing and humiliating,” Reyes said. “For the parts I had to read they would ask, ‘Can you put on an accent?’
 
I would ask them what kind and they would say it doesn’t matter. So I would make up one and they didn’t know the difference.”
 
Reyes was also frequently asked if he could speak his native language, which is Tagalog, and then asked if he could showcase some of his language during auditions.
 
“I would just make up something. I’d make up gibberish and they were like that’s great,” Reyes said. “I just didn’t see the career out there that I want.”
 
The discussion was insightful and offered audience goers an array of perspectives. The common theme, though, was that Asians and Asian Americans continue to struggle in finding opportunities where they can represent themselves as regular individuals instead of the perpetuated stereotypes. Although it was difficult for everyone on the panel to discuss why that might be, each of them were hopeful that opportunities for Asian Americans to do so would come soon.

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