Rose Han, drove all the way from Orange County to Hollywood to attend an audition. She was in a line of 100 people. The role is for a share space company aiming to cast from all races. She even left her real-state job to come here.

Han did not start acting until college. She had agents who connected her to an audition, with an opportunity to be the person who hands George Crony his coffee. But even that job has more than 100 people competing for the role.

It was not a big casting office and it was crowded. People signed in and listened to the instructions. When four of us got inside the casting office, we said our name and did a full body shot. Han said:“For commercials, they are all about the look.”

Han noticed that there were one or two other Asian faces, all with black hairs and with high hopes of being chosen.

A couple days later, doubting that she would get a callback, Han decided to dye her hair. She participated in another film project. Her hair was not black as it was in the first audition, and she worried that this was not a typical Asian look for commercials. Regardless, she tired her hair up, revealing the new blond and grey highlights.

She got a call back right after her friend’s project, Han was really surprised she made it to the audition.

She had the insecurity of being Asian in the group, and also was worried about her dyed hair, which was different from a typical Asian actress.

Han is part of the Asian community in Los Angeles, which is considered underrepresented and tokenized on screen. A report done by Stacy L. Smith, a professor in media, diversity and social change initiative, stated that last year, among 900 popular films, there was only 5.7 percent of actors were Asian compared to 70.8 percent of who were White, and 13.6 percent were Black actors/actresses in last year. White performers dominated the film industry. Only two Asian males had leads in the major productions. There were no Asian female lead roles on screen.

In addition, there is the issue of white-wash casting, or casting white actors to play non-white rols. Such as Ed Skrein was first cast to play the character of Major Ben Daimio in the “Hellboy:The Rise of the Blood Queen” And Zach McGowan has been cast as native Hawaiian Benehakaka in the WWII film”Ni’ihau.” Asian are less seen on films than TV. Even though there are shows like”Master of None,” and “Fresh Off the Boat” which contained Asian American leads, they are the exceptions of the majority of TV shows.

Asian actors and actresses are rarely assigned to lead roles, and the characters they do play ares often stereotypical supporting roles, such as nerdy students, doctors, and accountants. Asian Amerian female are often either hypersexualized or immigrants with an Asian accent. Even though there are talented Asian American actors, actresses, and producers, they did not get the equal opportunities as the white actors do. Two actors from the “Hawaii Five-O” Star Daniel Dae Kim and grace Park left the show because they were paid unequally as the two white leads.

Not many Asian American actors or producers are speaking out about the invisibility of their roles: Asian actresses often take the roles that would sell them short and are afraid to comment on the casting issues. Some actresses quit the industry because of financial or family reasons.

A casting director Tom Chou said:“If we as the Chinese actors are just complaining about it, we only look like cry babies. What we need to do is to create more Chinese content for our own to impress our community.”

Some changes are happening in the community. There are more people stepping out to make their web series and short films, which will show Hollywood that they should cast them that way.

Barriers and struggles

Greena Kim, a Korean actress, came to Los Angeles for four years pursing acting. She did a lot of background roles in music videos and was cast to a lead role in the short film Angeltown.

In the short film “Angeltown,” she spoke both Korean and English in the film. Greena dressed like Marilyn Monore, and tried to find her dream and herself in Los Angeles.

Greena Park in the short film "Angeltown"

People appreciated her acting. Greena said:“I am unconfident of showing the film because my English is so bad. I feel uncomfortable. But after premier, people come to me and say, your acting is so good, I got a lot of compliment.”

But before she got the lead role of Angeltown, she was struggled to find an agent. Because most agents think that she looks good, but not look like Asian American.

What stroked her the most was to not inform her about the certain outfit she would wear at the casting. One time she got a music video lead role, the directors ask her to bring her swim suit and wear it. But when she tried it in front of them, they did not approve her outfit because of not Asian enough.

The directors did not inform her about the random sexy outfit she would wear. Greena said:“They bring something super nerdy, dirty looking, not even swim suit, was like a shitty little paper barely I can hide my private part.” They later gave her another Kimono rope that was sexy; she responded that “but to me, it looks so dirty, like a porn star.”

Also, Greena noticed the cultural appropriation in Hollywood. Producers did not know the differences between Korean traditional clothes from Chinese Qipao and Japanese kimono. They picked the Japanese room and put it in the Korean setting.

Besides her own acting work, Greena wants to produce a tv show that shows Korean culture, and also the relationship between South and North Korea.

Rose han in an Asian American Short Film"I love you, SoCal

Personal and social struggles

“You are not American, and you are not Asian. I can’t go out for Chinese speaking roles.” said by Han. She feels that Asian Americans identify themselves as American and do not seem to enjoy playing stereotypical Asians who speak with an accent.

Even though there is progression happening in Hollywood, such as Wangfu production, an Asian American made web series to fight against the stereotype, there is still lots of disappointment and waiting for Asian American actresses. Han said,” I have a few avails, you are almost there, and not get there.”

Han and her parents disagree on her decision to become an actress. They want her to have a secure job outside of the acting business. She feels she does not have an emotional support from her family.

She works as a real-state agent so that she can afford to buy a house and film more reels to get her an agent. Han wants to be booked because of her acting or personality, not of her ethnicity. A role that she got was open ethnicity, Han recorded: “I was like a cheer leader, true to who I am. I dance and all that in high school.”

She plans to do a web series that cast all types of ethnicities and also addresses some of the social issues we see and experience as people of different cultural background. She hopes to help people look beyond the stereotypes. The main story line will be two girls and the events that occur in their daily lives in LA, from crazy boyfriend drama to apartment hunting to bad date rescue operations.

Han said:“We want to show that just because our skin is a different color and our roots are different, we shouldn’t be disqualified from lead roles that are currently heavily cast as Caucasian.”