The Shopping Cart Diaries: Entry 6

In our last few segments of The Shopping Cart Diaries: The Blog, I think it is time we address the elephant in the room, well blog since we're all here on the Internet. Brace yourselves because this post is about race.

Race one of the most seemingly taboo subjects to talk about is one of the central components of our movie actually. We casted an Asian American actor as our lead. (GASP!)

In the media Asian Americans are some of the worst represented racial groups, which is surprising as Asian Americans are cited as one of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States. Asian Americans are always viewed as being incredibly smart, having "tiger" parents, and being well overtly Asian in the way they speak. Our lead, Aaron, is nothing like that. In fact in our movie Aaron is just an average guy who works a mediocre job at the grocery store. To take things even farther Aaron's character is perceived as being adopted since his mother, played by yours truly, is white.

Asian actors hardly break it into the mainstream, and if they do it is either as a minor character or a kung-fu fighting action hero. Aaron is a quirky, lovable goof in a comedic indie film. As no one is Asian American on the production team,  we consider ourselves pioneers in this realm.  Even though new shows like "Fresh off the Boat" portray Asian American characters as the protagonists, they still fall victim to one of the industry's most stereotyped races.