As Filipinos in America, I keep hearing that we’re invisible, especially in mainstream media. Oh, we’re visible – we’re just usually playing another ethnicity.
Dante Basco in every movie he’s in except for The Debut (2000).
Tia Carrere in Wayne’s World (1991) as the ambiguously Asian Cassandra, the kick-boxing rocker. Schwing!
Lou Diamond Phillips in La Bamba (1987) as Mexican singer Ritchie Valens.
Nia Peeples in Fame (1984) as Nicole Chapman, white.
Lea Salonga in Redwood Curtain (1995) as John Lithgow’s half-Vietnamese daughter.
Ernie Reyes, Jr. in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) as a fucking turtle.
The Tagalog-speaking people inside the Ewok costumes in Return of the Jedi (1983).
And my dude Bambu in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (2008) as a savage (Sorry bro had to do it!).
A tradition that continues to this day, whether mestiza/o (Rob Schneider, Shannyn Sossamon, Vanessa Hudgens) or straight-up Philippine (Paolo Montalban, Reggie Lee). And the one time a character is supposed to be Filipino (Better Luck Tomorrow, 2003), they get a Chinese dude to play him (Parry Shen). This is not passing judgment on these actors, but rather, throwing a question at Hollywood: what the fuck? Until the day that a Filipino actor can play a Filipino character in a mainstream film (with more screentime than Rob Schneider’s mom), let’s celebrate those who lent their bodies to ethnicities other than our own. Happy Filipino American History Month!
via Prometheus Brown
