Letter to Hyphen Magazine

Dear Harry Mok,

As I read your article about "Commercial Success," your first two sentences explained it all "Something Odd has been happening... Asian Americans in commercials" and it is something I noticed too. Honestly, what are the odds of seeing an Asian American on television? I would say very slim, but I too noticed that slowly more and more Asian Americans are in commercials or bill board ads. I rarely watch commercials. When they come on I usually start channel surfing, but I remember one day when the Home Depot commercial about getting new cabinets aired I couldn't help but watch it. I remember saying to my sister, "hey look, Asians and not only one, but three of them!" It caught me by surprise that an Asian American family was actually on TV and for once it was not about "kung-fu fighter or garden-variety geisha girl." After reading this article, I had the urge to watch television to count the number of commercials with Asian Americans. It makes me wonder why the sudden change? Does allowing Asian American to be in commercials stand for a sign of acceptance into society? What message is being portrayed by having Asians Americans in TV ads? We won't know, but as it says at the end of your article " perhaps one day we will reach a point when Asian Americans on the tube will have become so common that we won't even care." I would like to see that day come.

Jaimie Lui
San Francisco, CA
ETHS 210