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polychromatic) wrote2019-06-05 05:03 pm
polychromatic) wrote2019-06-05 05:03 pm
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Growing up, I spent a reasonable amount of time being entertained by the television. I'd watch Duck Tales, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, She-Ra, Care Bears, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more after school, and my mom bemoaned that on weekends she'd hear me coming early in the morning to ask for permission to tune in to the Saturday morning cartoon line-up. As I've mentioned before, I don't know that I overtly felt the absence of Asian-American representation growing up, especially as a lot of my early programming featured anthropomorphic cartoon animals. I also had the benefit of watching kid's programming in the late 80's and early 90's, where it felt like there was a concerted effort to have a more multicultural representation to reflect what was happening in the real world.
In this post, I wanted to reflect on the Asian-American characters I distinctly remember from my childhood. These are characters that were named, have speaking lines, and distinctive personalities. It has been years since I have revisited most of these characters, but if they had enough of a presence to at least leave a memory, they're included here.
One thing I did notice is that there seems to be a lot less representation for young Asian-American boys growing up. I don't doubt that I may be overlooking some characters, but overall it does seem that shows tended to have more female Asian characters than male.
Ah, the early 90's! Maybe it's the rose-coloured glasses talking, but my memories of the 90's was an overall positive one. There was an emphasis on decreasing pollution and preserving our environment, we were taught to embrace multiculturalism, and were constantly told that gender equality was on the rise as women were becoming more powerful in the work force. I felt like I was constantly being promised a better world and... I don't know that I got it. Still, shows like Captain Planet and the Planeteers were dear to my heart, with kids like me being able to harness their respective element to help keep the Earth clean and protect nature. I loved that they had a diverse group of characters from all around the world helping to deliver this message, and I've always had an affinity to water and swimming so it was doubly exciting that Gi - the Asian girl of undetermined ethnicity - was the keeper of the water ring and got to do amazing things like swim with dolphins. Other than that, I don't really recall much more than Gi seeming like a pleasant character who sometimes felt like a secondary character in terms of storylines and personality. Still, it was exciting to see someone who looked like me being part of a team that's goal was to help save the environment!
I loved The Magic School Bus so much as a kid. Imagine having an amazing teacher like Ms. Frizzle, an awesome class pet like Liz, and getting to go on all sorts of exciting field trips that you could only dream of! Science was my favourite subject anyway, so getting to learn in such a fun way was really energizing. Ms. Frizzle's class had a decent mix of kids from different backgrounds, and among them was Wanda Li, who I assumed came from a Chinese background. Wanda was great - a brash, bossy, confident child. Sure she was a little prone to panic ("What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do?" being her catchphrase in the show), but she was always game for any weird field trips and got the job done when it counted. That she was often stubborn and more aggressive in getting her way at times than the other kids in her class was enlightening to me, the quiet and shy Chinese-Canadian girl. I also found it very cute that she was the sometimes obvious crush of nervous class-wimp Arnold. I greatly appreciate that one of my earliest exposures to a fictional Asian-American character was someone as proud of herself as Wanda - no one would ever mistake her for a shrinking violet!
Jubilee (X-Men: The Animated Series)
Trini (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers)
Look, the Power Rangers was practically a cultural phenomenon when it first came out. Was it maybe a little too on the nose that the Black Ranger was African-American and Yellow Ranger was Asian-American? Yeah, it probably was. But as an elementary school kid, I was thrilled that one of the Rangers was an Asian-American girl! Trini's existence gave me a chance to pretend to be her on the playground and feel like I was "right" for the part. It gave me permission to feel part of something that was huge at my school! Although it wasn't much deeper than that - none of us were watching this show for the writing - it was still very powerful to see an Asian-American kicking monster-butt and getting to also be a hero in the same bombastic manner as her fellow rangers. Power Rangers suffered its share of ridicule - it was a cheesy kids' show after all - but it was very important to me at that time. Although I doubt I would have stuck around long anyway, the fact that Trini was written off the show after the first season definitely played a large part in my general disinterest in the franchise from there on.
In this post, I wanted to reflect on the Asian-American characters I distinctly remember from my childhood. These are characters that were named, have speaking lines, and distinctive personalities. It has been years since I have revisited most of these characters, but if they had enough of a presence to at least leave a memory, they're included here.
One thing I did notice is that there seems to be a lot less representation for young Asian-American boys growing up. I don't doubt that I may be overlooking some characters, but overall it does seem that shows tended to have more female Asian characters than male.
Gi (Captain Planet and the Planeteers)
Ah, the early 90's! Maybe it's the rose-coloured glasses talking, but my memories of the 90's was an overall positive one. There was an emphasis on decreasing pollution and preserving our environment, we were taught to embrace multiculturalism, and were constantly told that gender equality was on the rise as women were becoming more powerful in the work force. I felt like I was constantly being promised a better world and... I don't know that I got it. Still, shows like Captain Planet and the Planeteers were dear to my heart, with kids like me being able to harness their respective element to help keep the Earth clean and protect nature. I loved that they had a diverse group of characters from all around the world helping to deliver this message, and I've always had an affinity to water and swimming so it was doubly exciting that Gi - the Asian girl of undetermined ethnicity - was the keeper of the water ring and got to do amazing things like swim with dolphins. Other than that, I don't really recall much more than Gi seeming like a pleasant character who sometimes felt like a secondary character in terms of storylines and personality. Still, it was exciting to see someone who looked like me being part of a team that's goal was to help save the environment!
Wanda (The Magic School Bus)
I loved The Magic School Bus so much as a kid. Imagine having an amazing teacher like Ms. Frizzle, an awesome class pet like Liz, and getting to go on all sorts of exciting field trips that you could only dream of! Science was my favourite subject anyway, so getting to learn in such a fun way was really energizing. Ms. Frizzle's class had a decent mix of kids from different backgrounds, and among them was Wanda Li, who I assumed came from a Chinese background. Wanda was great - a brash, bossy, confident child. Sure she was a little prone to panic ("What are we gonna do, what are we gonna do, what are we gonna do?" being her catchphrase in the show), but she was always game for any weird field trips and got the job done when it counted. That she was often stubborn and more aggressive in getting her way at times than the other kids in her class was enlightening to me, the quiet and shy Chinese-Canadian girl. I also found it very cute that she was the sometimes obvious crush of nervous class-wimp Arnold. I greatly appreciate that one of my earliest exposures to a fictional Asian-American character was someone as proud of herself as Wanda - no one would ever mistake her for a shrinking violet!
Jubilee (X-Men: The Animated Series)
The X-Men were not my first foray into comic book characters and superheroes - I had loved Adam West's live-action Batman series as a kid and always tried to tune in at "the same Bat-time on the same Bat-channel" to follow his adventures. When I caught the first episode of Fox's X-Men: The Animated Series though, I was hooked. Jubilee - a character that is about as early 90's as it can get - was a great audience surrogate for introducing me into the mutant world. She was sassy, spirited and fun, plus I loved her sparkler effect powers! I enjoyed watching her find her place in the X-Men team and the adventures (and drama!) that were constantly brewing. In a pre-internet, pre-streaming age I was forced to be a more of a fairweather fan of the show, catching episodes when I could but missing them more often than not. Still, I have always had a soft spot for Jubilee for being an Asian girl with superpowers and have always been sorely disappointed that she has been so under-represented in the movie franchise.
Of course that didn't stop me from Halloween shenanigans once I got my hands on a suitable yellow jacket. Thank you, X-Men Apocalypse, for at least giving Jubilee an adorable new design, if not much else.
Tina (Ghostwriter)
Continuing on the trend of kids' shows having culturally diverse casts came Ghostwriter. I am and always have been terrified by the idea of ghosts, but Ghostwriter was a harmless, friendly entity who helped a bunch of neighbourhood kids solve relatively low stakes mysteries. Tina Nguyen - a first generation Vietnamese-American - joined the Ghostwriter team early on to help solve cases, balancing school, investigative work, and helping out at her family's tailor shop. She was sweet, bright, and motivated, and I remember being engrossed in the case that she got to lead as the Girl Friday to an old Hollywood starlet. Her puppy-love with another member of the team and her interest in becoming an actress was intriguing to me as a kid. It was comforting in a way to see a character that sort of looked like me could be successful academically, socially, and emotionally during a time when I felt very much like an ugly duckling. That she was also shown speaking Vietnamese was icing on the cake. It showed it was okay for her to engage in her own culture while still very much growing up as an American.
Trini (Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers)
Look, the Power Rangers was practically a cultural phenomenon when it first came out. Was it maybe a little too on the nose that the Black Ranger was African-American and Yellow Ranger was Asian-American? Yeah, it probably was. But as an elementary school kid, I was thrilled that one of the Rangers was an Asian-American girl! Trini's existence gave me a chance to pretend to be her on the playground and feel like I was "right" for the part. It gave me permission to feel part of something that was huge at my school! Although it wasn't much deeper than that - none of us were watching this show for the writing - it was still very powerful to see an Asian-American kicking monster-butt and getting to also be a hero in the same bombastic manner as her fellow rangers. Power Rangers suffered its share of ridicule - it was a cheesy kids' show after all - but it was very important to me at that time. Although I doubt I would have stuck around long anyway, the fact that Trini was written off the show after the first season definitely played a large part in my general disinterest in the franchise from there on.