She then revealed, “They called me ‘chinky giraffe.’ I cried all the time. But my mother wanted me to turn my tears into something else, something positive.” So her mother signed her up for modeling, and Karl Lagerfeld eventually dubbed her “the face of the 21st century.”

H.E.R., born Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, is of Black and Filipino descent. In an interview with WWD, she said that she “identifies strongly with both sides” and that when she was a kid, her home was distinctly Filipino. She took her shoes off at the door, and her grandparents lived with her — always cooking.

She continued, “My dad would throw down with the soul food when we had our Black side over. Black culture, to me, is so important, and I identify with young Black women. I represent young Black women, and I’m proud of that.”

Ian Anthony Dale is of French, English, and Japanese descent. In a 2023 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Dale talked about his role as Jiro in Accused, sharing, “The writer, Karl Taro Greenfeld, is half Japanese. I’m half Japanese, so there was an immediate connection there. And as I started to read the [script for the] episode, I realized it’s centered around a Japanese American family, had strong themes of family and what you might be willing to do in order to protect your family, and I thought, This is a gift.

“In my 21 years doing this,” he continued, “rarely have I come across an opportunity where the story I get to be a part of is written by someone who shares my cultural identity and is writing from a point of view that I can relate to wholeheartedly because of our shared experiences.

“But when I actually read the story and saw how beautiful it was and saw how just emotionally deep and revealing it all was, as an actor, I was like, ‘Oh my god. I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this.’ Never before in my career have I gotten to sink my teeth into a character with quite this emotional depth as Jiro has in this episode,” he concluded.

Auli’i Cravalho is of Native Hawaiian, Puerto Rican, Portuguese, Chinese, and Irish descent. In fact, her last name, “Cravalho,” is a misspelling of the Portuguese name “Carvalho.” In a 2022 interview with StyleCaster, Cravalho opened up about how she was typecast when auditioning after the Moana hype settled down: “People didn’t know my face, and when casting did see my face, they’d say, ‘You’re racially ambiguous.’ I’m like, ‘That’s a new term. I’ve never heard that one before,’ which left me even more internally confused because my identity has always been Hawaiian.

“Suddenly, all of these phrases were thrust at me: ‘Well, you’re white-passing, but you’re also racially ambiguous, so you can play Latinx, you can play Asian, you can play all of these different things.’ I was like, ‘I just want to play smart women. The bar is there,'” she said.

Blake Abbie is of Chinese and Scottish descent. In a 2023 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Abbie talked about how he’s perceived in different countries: “It’s an interesting experience to be mixed race. You can definitely slip in and out of spaces. It’s funny. I look exactly like my mom, I think. She’s on the show; you can decide that yourself. But people don’t think I’m Chinese, which is very strange to me because I think we’re quite carbon copies. But then I start speaking Mandarin and they’re always, like, really surprised. Then I’m like, ‘Oh, my mom’s from Hangzhou.’ And they’re like, ‘Of course you speak Chinese.’ That’s not quite it. I studied and I made sure. I wanted to be able to speak to my grandma.”

He continued, “Europe is an interesting space to be in. I lived in London and Paris, and I worked there with fashion. It’s not the easiest being mixed or Asian. I think you’re always kind of seen as an outsider. I think that’s quite a French cultural thing, right? I speak French as well, but if you’re not French or you didn’t go to the right school or didn’t grow up in Paris or whatever, like, you’re always kind of viewed as an outsider. I can’t really speak to other spaces because I don’t spend all that much time there.”

Darren Barnet is of Japanese, Cherokee, Swedish, and German descent. He was raised in Los Angeles until he was 12, then he moved to Orlando, where he was made fun of by his peers for being Japanese. He told Teen Vogue in a 2021 interview, “I felt like I couldn’t fit in anywhere. Even coming into acting, I never really thought about leaning into my Japanese heritage because there’s this feeling I have that I’m not Asian enough to do it. And I felt like if I was cast as a distinctly Asian character, there’d be controversy around that.”

He also talked about his grandmother, who immigrated to the US from Japan in the ’50s: “My bachan used to smoke, and I have a memory as a kid of seeing her out on our balcony, crouching while smoking. I’d learn later that she did this because, during the war, everyone had to turn off their lights and crouch if they were outside so they weren’t detected by planes. There are so many things I wish I could ask her about her life now.”

Tia Carrere is of Spanish, Filipino, and Chinese descent. In a 2022 interview with Cinema Daily, Carrere talked about having a “perse” look as an actor in the ’90s: “Coming up, it helped me, definitely, but it’s been a double-edged sword, as I’ve always said. It was difficult getting cast in shows because I wasn’t all-American looking. I wasn’t the girl next door. I certainly couldn’t play the mother to kids who weren’t my ethnicity. It made it hard. But there were fewer girls when I walked into the room. There were a handful of girls that I would see at auditions, so my odds went way up. Now [there are] hundreds — or thousands — of actresses that are of mixed descent that look like me.”

She also talked about working with an all-Filipino cast on Easter Sunday with Variety in a 2022 interview, saying, “It’s a whole new world. Thank god that I’m able to partake in it. I started out in 1984 and came here from Hawaii. There, everyone is mixed and they have five, six, seven different ethnic backgrounds, but I came here and people were like, ‘What are you? Chinese? Japanese?’ They didn’t even know Filipino. My hair was short, and I had to get a long-haired wig because I was only going to get these types of roles where I’d have to work on a Chinese accent. Even when I was on General Hospital, I never had an interracial relationship. I was in the Asian quarter with my Asian boyfriend, who’s also an Asian doctor. When we left the Asian quarter, it was to go to the old country to help our people. It was still very pided. It was very hard trying to get out of that.”

Apl.de.Ap, born Allan Pineda Lindo, is of Filipino and Black descent. He was born in Angeles City, Philippines. His father, a member of the US Air Force stationed at Clark Air Base, left their family not long after Apl.de.Ap’s birth. Through the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, Lindo was eventually matched with a sponsor, lawyer Joe Ben Hudgens, who officially adopted Apl.de.Ap when he was 14. He then permanently moved to the US to live with Hudgens. 

In a 2023 interview with Nylon, Apl.de.Ap talked about pursuing music in the US and celebrating his heritage in his music. “When I first got to the US, hanging out in the studios of famous rappers, I was inevitably considered weird. [My song] ‘Bebot’ was just me wanting to add Tagalog to my music.”

Earlier, in a 2012 interview with the National News, he elaborated, “It is really important for me to help my culture. When I see the discrepancy between kids in the Philippines and the US, I feel like I have to give them an opportunity. I was one of these kids, and now that I have the voice and power to help, well, it is why I now do it.”

He also reflected on how hip-hop helped him connect with Will.i.am in eighth grade: “My English wasn’t so good at the time. Will asked me, ‘Well, what do you do in the Philippines?’ And I said I learnt this new move called the Running Man. And he was like, ‘What? You know the Running Man in the Philippines?'”

Kelly Hu is of Chinese, English, and Hawaiian descent. In a 2019 interview with We Are Resonate, Hu talked about being one of the few Asian American celebrities in the ’90s and the people she looked up to as a child: “Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of role models. There were not a lot of Asian actresses to look up to. Nancy [Kwan] was one of the few. She did Flower Drum Song and The World of Suzie Wong. I didn’t realize until many, many years later that Susie Wong was a hooker, but you know, those are what we had. That’s what we had to look up.”

She continued, “Growing up in Hawaii, I was much more fortunate because being Asian, I was part of a majority — whereas growing up on the mainland, I would have had a completely different narrative, so my role models were more local people, local entertainers. But there were no real big actors to look up to.”

Anna Cathcart is of Chinese and Irish descent. In a 2018 interview with Bustle, Cathcart — who naturally has auburn hair — talked about being asked to dye her hair black for her role as Kitty, who is half Korean and half white, in To All the Boy I’ve Loved Before. “We decided to stand our ground and say, ‘We really don’t want to change that part of Anna,'” she explained, revealing that she and her mother were concerned her hair wouldn’t grow back the same after being dyed black.

Janel Parrish is of Chinese, English, Irish, and German descent. In a 2015 interview with SheKnows, Parrish talked about moving from Hawaii to LA at the age of 14 to pursue acting: “Being a mixed-race actress was very difficult, especially growing up. When you’re younger and you have to fit into a family and you’re of mixed race, you don’t quite fit into the Hollywood look — which is usually the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl next door — and so I would audition for those roles, and they didn’t quite know where to place me.”

She continued, “Now that I’m older and I don’t really have to fit into a family in roles, it’s not that much of an issue, and I think also Hollywood and the world has become a little less colorblind, which is wonderful. People like Maggie Q are getting lead roles as a beautiful Asian American actress, and that’s wonderful…that’s not something I think would have happened 10 to 12 years ago, when I first came here.”

Naomi Osaka is of Haitian and Japanese descent. In a 2020 interview with WSJ Magazine, Osaka said, “I’m just trying to put a platform out for all the Japanese people that look like me and live in Japan, and when they go to a restaurant, they get handed an English menu, even though it’s just a little microaggression.”

She also opened up about a time when she was younger and playing against a Japanese opponent: “She was talking with another Japanese girl, and they didn’t know that I was listening [or that] I spoke Japanese. Her friend asked her who she was playing, so she said, ‘Osaka.’ And her friend says, ‘Oh, that Black girl. Is she supposed to be Japanese?’ And then the girl that I was playing was like, ‘I don’t think so.’ I remember that specifically because, yeah, I sometimes feel like a lot of people think that way about me.”

Rachel Marsh is Filipino and European descent. In a 2023 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Marsh talked about her background and how she got into acting: “I am from the suburbs a little north of Seattle. I’m from a small town called Bothell — well, it’s not that small, but you’ve probably never heard of it. I’m half Filipino, half white. My dad’s Filipino Hawaiian, so he grew up in Hawaii and then moved to Seattle. He was in the Vietnam War, went to Seattle after the war, and met my mom. I have a brother, sister, and a nephew, and we’re all half Filipino.” 

She continued, “My mom passed when I was 13, so we kind of grew up with my dad and his traditions, cooking, and all of his Hawaiian influences. I feel like I identify more with Hawaiian culture than Filipino culture sometimes. He didn’t speak Tagalog to us growing up. He kind of spoke a mixture of Tagalog, pidgin, and something that’s like his own language.”

Jordan Fisher is of Black, Asian, Greek, and Tahitian descent. He was adopted by white parents, and in a 2022 interview, he spoke with Mixed Asian Media about what foods or traditions he associates with his heritage: “Being adopted is a really interesting thing for me, right? … Having white parents, but also knowing of my Black and Asian side and my Greek and Tahitian side. Circumnavigating the globe a handful of times in my career, I’ve been able to have real experiences with different parts of my heritage that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. I have been finding different things that I connect with my heritage — not just like, ‘This is what we do as a family,’ but that genuinely speak to me.” 

He also talked about how being mixed influences the way he approaches his roles: “Being mixed affects my day-to-day life, so it’s affected every role I’ve had. It’s hard because naturally, we want to label everything. It’s just what we do. There’s no shame in that. It’s comforting for us to be able to look at something and say, ‘Let me classify that and put it somewhere in my brain,’ right? I don’t take offense to that, but I’m painfully aware of the fact that I was, like, the only person of color in my school growing up and the only mixed kid in my town, and the only dark kid in my family until my little brother and sister were born. 

“That kind of stuff affects my day-to-day. In terms of how my character processes and rationalizes and whatnot doesn’t change any of that. But I’m sure that being the person that I am, being made the way that I am, affects how I approach everything.”

KJ Apa, born Keneti James Apa, is of Samoan, Scottish, English, and Irish descent. In a 2017 interview with Vulture, Apa opened up about his family, saying, “I have a massive Samoan family. And the Samoan culture has always played a massive part of my life. I’ve got hundreds of family on my dad’s side that live in Samoa and in New Zealand. I’ve just been surrounded by the culture ever since I was a kid.”

He continued, “I actually used to speak Samoan, but me and my sisters all kind of lost it. We go there at least once a year to see family. And my dad recently just got a traditional Samoan tattoo. He’s a chief in Samoa, so he got that tattoo to commemorate it.”

While on Jimmy Kimmel Live in 2021, Apa elaborated, “[My dad] is a matai, yeah. He holds the matai title, chief title, of the village that he’s from and I’m from, called Moata’a, in Samoa.” When asked if the title would then pass to him, he responded, “I don’t know. I can’t speak Samoan, so it’ll be something for me to take that would be kind of, I would think it’s a huge responsibility. I don’t really feel adequate, to be honest, but I doubt myself in almost everything that I do.”

In 2022, Apa was bestowed the matai title “savae” in a ceremony at the traditional grounds Laoa o Tamapua in Moata’a by the chiefs of his village. In an Instagram post sharing pictures of the cultural ceremony, he wrote, “O la’u fautuaga – o le a ou tautua i le tatou aiga ma le tatou nu’u. Fa’afetai i le Atua. My goal is to serve my family and my village (Moata’a) Thank you God.”

Bella Hadid, born Isabella Khair Hadid, is of Dutch and Palestinian descent. In the past, Hadid has made headlines for supporting Palestinian independence and sparked conversations around Eurocentric beauty standards when she revealed in a 2022 Vogue interview that she regretted getting a nose job at age 14, saying, “I wish I had kept the nose of my ancestors. I think I would have grown into it.”

Hadid’s father, Mohamed Hadid, immigrated to the US after he and his family fled to Syria during the war in 1948. Bella Hadid described her experience visiting Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque as the best day of her life in a 2018 Harper’s Bazaar interview: “I was talking to all of these Arab women and men, and finally understanding the culture a lot more than I ever really have. He would teach us about it and we would go and do Eid with my family and we would do Ramadan — I did that since I was a kid. Once I got older, I was working and going to school, so I couldn’t fast for as long. My dad, he’s so passionate about it, and that’s what kept me very passionate and excited about my roots.”  

In a 2022 interview on Libyan American journalist Noor Tagouri’s podcast Rep, Hadid discussed how her relationship to her identity has evolved and her activism for Palestine: “When I was 14, I wrote, ‘Free Palestine’ on my hand literally with flowers in paint. And I was being called names and being immediately blasted as a person of hatred for another people.” She also shared that she was told her father was “a terrorist by the head of the football team.”

Regarding her support for Palestine, Hadid revealed, “I had friends that completely dropped me. Even friends that I’ve been having dinner at their home on Friday nights for seven years now just won’t have me at their house anymore. … If I started speaking about Palestine when I was 20, I wouldn’t have gotten the recognition and the respect that I have now. I had so many companies stop working with me.” In spite of the backlash, Hadid said she has no fear about speaking up for Palestine: “I really believe that it’s like, what happens, happens, and what is going to happen is bigger than me. If I lose every job, the reason why I did all of the work that I did was to get to this point.”

Zoë Chao is of Chinese and Irish English descent. In a 2017 interview with NBC News’ Asian America, she talked about playing Isobel in Strangers: “My mom is Caucasian, and she sends me all of these ancestry sites now. She has Irish English roots from Ohio. My dad is Chinese. My grandmother moved to Michigan from China when she was 7, pre–Cultural Revolution.”

When auditioning for roles, Chao noticed a similarity between characters available for female Asian American actors, such as quirky best friends or tech workers. However, Strangers was different. “One of the most moving things about Strangers is that a face that looks like mine is the center of the story. We get to know Isobel beyond the caricature,” she said.

Amy Hill is of Finnish and Japanese descent. In a 2023 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Hill talked about Asian actors who influenced her as a child: “Well, I’ve always sort of enjoyed comedy, and I remember because my family was mixed (my father was Finnish from South Dakota, and my mom was Japanese from Japan), I loved the Lucille Ball show ’cause that seemed like my family. My mom was Desi, obviously. And then my dad was Lucy, I guess. But it was sort of that mix of craziness in the household that we also had in our household. I loved that.”

She also talked about living in Hawaii to film Magnum P.I. after being born in South Dakota, growing up in Seattle, and going to school in Japan, saying, “I’ve made incredibly good friends over the four and a half years that I’ve lived here. And I had friends from before, so I have friends that I’ve known for 40 years, 30 years, and 5 years. I’ve got a wonderful community here. And I love that nobody asks me what I am.”

Zayn Malik is of Pakistani and Irish descent. In a 2017 interview with the Evening Standard, Malik shared, “I take a great sense of pride — and responsibility — in knowing that I am the first of my kind, from my background. I’m not currently practicing, but I was raised in the Islamic faith, so it will always be with me, and I identify a lot with the culture. But I’m just me. I don’t want to be defined by my religion or my cultural background.”

He also shared what it was like touring with One Direction in their early days: “The first time I came to America, I had three security checks before I got on the plane. First, they said that I’d been randomly selected, and then they said it was something to do with my name — it was flagging something on their system. It was like a movie. They kept me there for three hours, questioning me about all kinds of crazy stuff. I was 17, my first time in America, jet-lagged off the plane, confused. The same thing happened the next time, too.”

In a 2018 interview with Vogue, Malik reflected on his childhood in Britain. “I did see the segregation,” he said before speaking about people’s perspective on his parents. “That was confusing for people; they didn’t really understand. ‘Who’s the brown person? Is it your mum or is it your dad?’ That was nobody’s fault, other than learning these things.” He also shared his optimism about the future as people learn more about race and society progresses: “It’s natural. There are more mixed-race people around now.” 

And though he’s often referred to as ‘Britain’s most famous Muslim,’ Malik pointed out, “I’ve never spoken publicly about what my religious beliefs are. I’m not professed to be a Muslim.” He also revealed that he wouldn’t call himself Muslim: “No, I wouldn’t. I believe whatever people’s religious beliefs are is between them and whoever or whatever they’re practicing. For me, I have a spiritual belief of there is a god. Do I believe there’s a hell? No.”

On his relationship with religion, he elaborated, “With my mum and dad, they were always there to educate us — I did go to mosque, I did study Islam — but they gave us the option so you could choose for yourself. There’s definitely beautiful parts to every religion.”

Hannah Simone is of Indian, Italian, Greek Cypriot, and German descent. Talking about her role on New Girl in an interview with CAA Media, Simone explained, “When they were casting this role, they weren’t looking for a South Asian character. I remember when I got cast, I went to [show creator] Liz Meriwether and I said, ‘That’s really cool that you cast me. I didn’t grow up watching American sitcoms, seeing my face in those shows.’ I was talking not just as a South Asian person but as someone with this skin tone.”

Simone continued, “I remember Liz just looking at me and saying, ‘Hannah, I just cast the funniest person,’ and that really landed on me. And she just kept writing that way to keep Cece a funny, honest character and friend and woman on that show.”

Saweetie, born Diamonté Quiava Valentin Harper, is of Black and Filipino descent. When asked in a 2019 interview with HelloGiggles how being biracial affected her growing up, she said, “I definitely felt out of place at times because the cultures that I was raised around were completely night and day. But I feel like those [types] of internal struggles help me understand people better, and I now know that not one set of people is the same.” 

She continued, “Like, my mom is of Filipino descent and my dad is of Black descent, so it allows me to be sensitive to other people’s cultures. Because sometimes people might not communicate or understand the things that I do. I might not understand what someone else is doing, but I’m always able to know that people come from different places and have different understandings.”

Anna Shay is of Russian and Japanese descent. In a 2022 interview with JoySauce and Mixed Asian Media, Shay reflected on growing up in Japan before moving to Los Angeles: “I don’t think I really knew the difference when we moved from there to here. I went to an international school. My father is American, but his parents immigrated from Russia. My mom was Japanese and a quarter Russian, actually.”

She then talked about how she didn’t feel any pressure to prove her Asianness, explaining, “I think that when people put themselves into a category, they’re putting themselves into those categories. They’re cutting themselves off from anything that they can venture into in this great, big world. I think the best thing is just to grow up and know who you are. You’re going to make mistakes. You may not understand certain things, but I’m blessed to have the parents that I had. They taught me to know who you are to believe in yourself.”

She continued, “So being Asian, or half, really never really entered my life. I did see things that were a little odd. I’d be at school and I’d talk in Japanese with my mom. When my family moved from Japan, not many people here spoke a second language. So it’s all how you look at things, right? Being able to speak Japanese was great.”

Michelle Zauner is of Korean and Jewish descent. She was born in Seoul before moving to Eugene, Oregon. In 2018, her essay “Crying in H Mart” was published in the New Yorker, in which she discussed coping with her mother’s death from cancer and her multiculturalism. The caption read, “Sobbing near the dry goods, I ask myself, ‘Am I even Korean if there’s no one left in my life to call and ask which brand of seafood we used to buy?'” The essay then evolved into a book.

In a 2021 interview with Slate, Zauner talked about what it was like growing up half Asian: “I don’t feel like I was really interested in my Korean heritage until my mom passed away. Obviously, it was a part of my life naturally, growing up with a Korean mother and going to Seoul every other summer and having Korean relatives, but it wasn’t something I thought about very much until she passed away, honestly.

“I was definitely really embarrassed at times,” she continued. “I went through a phase, especially in middle school, when you’re just, like, so embarrassed of everything. One thing that was really important to me was my mom always referred to herself in the third person as ‘Mommy,’ which is such a Korean thing. That drove me crazy because I would be at the mall and bump into a friend or something and she’d say, ‘Mommy is going to be over there.’ And I’d be like, ‘Mom, just say I.’ Stuff like that. Now it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s so cute! What a little bitch I was being!’ But at the time it was just mortifying, like, so, so mortifying. My mom’s name was Chongmi and people would call her Chow Mein sometimes.”

She then elaborated, “My name is Michelle Chongmi Zauner, and I used to pretend that I didn’t have a middle name, because if you see the name, Michelle Zauner, you don’t know what I’m going to look like. And it felt like a power to me [because] you don’t know anything about me with a name like that. That’s what really bothered me about being half Asian, was I wanted to be in control of my narrative. Anything that isn’t like being a neutral body, like a neutral white body, makes me feel out of control of my narrative for what you assume of me.”

Taika Waititi is of Māori (Te Whānau-ā-Apanui), Russian Jewish, and Irish descent. In a 2018 interview with Daze, Waititi talked about growing up half Polynesian in New Zealand: “Growing up, it was very normal to go into a store and they would say, ‘What do you want?’ And you’d be like, [muttering] ‘I’m just looking at chips, man.’ I remember getting a job at a dairy and they would never give me a job at the till; I was always at the back washing vegetables.”

He went on, “And then one day, one of the owners asked me if I sniffed glue, like, ‘Are you a glue sniffer?’ In my head I was like, ‘Motherfucker, you grew up with my mum!’ And I knew for sure that he didn’t ask other kids in the store if they were glue sniffers.”

Gigi Hadid, born Jelena Noura Hadid, is of Dutch and Palestinian descent. In a 2021 interview with i-D, Hadid opened up about raising her mixed-race daughter, Khai (whose father is Zayn Malik), as well as being a white-passing, mixed-race inpidual herself: “We think about it and talk about it a lot as partners, and it’s something that’s really important to us, but it’s also something that we first experienced ourselves. Because both of our parents are their own heritage. We are that first generation of those mixed races, and then that comes with that first generational experience of being like, ‘Oh damn, I’m the bridge!’ That’s not something that my parents experienced or that they can really help me through. It’s something I’ve always thought about my whole life.”

About herself, she continued, “In certain situations, I feel — or I’m made to feel — that I’m too white to stand up for part of my Arab heritage. You go through life trying to figure out where you fit in racially. Is what I am, or what I have, enough to do what I feel is right? But then, also, is that taking advantage of the privilege of having the whiteness within me, right? Am I allowed to speak for this side of me, or is that speaking on something that I don’t experience enough to know? Do you know what I’m saying?

“I think that Khai will grow up feeling out the way that she can or wants to be a bridge for her different ethnicities,” Hadid concluded, “but I think that it will be nice to be able to have those conversations, and see where she comes from [with] it, without us putting that onto her. What comes from her is what I’m most excited about, and being able to add to that or answer her questions, you know?”

Hines Ward is of Black and Korean descent. In a 2009 interview with the New York Times, the current football coach and former wide receiver opened up: “It was hard for me to find my identity. The Black kids didn’t want to hang out with me because I had a Korean mom. The white kids didn’t want to hang out with me because I was Black. The Korean kids didn’t want to hang out with me because I was Black. It was hard to find friends growing up. And then once I got involved in sports, color didn’t matter.”

When discussing the ostracism and discrimination mixed-race children in South Korea face, Ward said, “It’s a great culture. I love everything about it. But there’s a dark side to that culture. And me, I’m just trying to shed a light on that dark side and make Korea a better place than it already is.” 

Jason Momoa is of Native Hawaiian, German, Irish, and Native American descent. In a 2018 interview with the New Paper, Momoa talked about Aquaman‘s significance to mixed-race people, saying, “And honestly, to be the first mixed-race superhero in 2018…that is a huge honor.”

He noted, “And also just to play it so close to who I am, with all of Arthur [Curry]’s imperfections. I don’t have to be Superman — I am not. But I got to play it as someone who really is split between two worlds, and I am excited for the world to see it.”

Danny Pudi is of Indian and Polish descent. In a 2017 interview with the Center for Asian American Media, Pudi said, “Inside my home, I’m very Polish. As soon as I left the door, in school and in public, I was pretty much perceived as Indian.” When asked about his upbringing as a “brown kid in a Polish family in Chicago,” Pudi answered:

“That’s pretty much it. I laugh when I hear that description, so I can only imagine what people thought of me back in the ’80s in Chicago. I always felt a little strange. I always felt a little odd. We lived in an amazing neighborhood, though, and our family was super tight. So I always felt safe, which was wonderful. I knew our situation was different, but we were always encouraged to embrace that.

“And my mom especially decided it wasn’t enough to stick out. So she made me take Polish dance and take violin lessons and all this other stuff — so that way, I would stick out even more than I already did. Which can be challenging growing up, you know…you’re just trying to blend in. It’s pretty difficult when you grow up speaking Polish but you and half of your family is from Andhra Pradesh. But it was wonderful. It was very colorful.”

Keanu Reeves is of Chinese, English, Irish, Native Hawaiian, and Portuguese descent. In an interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Reeves recalled how his manager initially wanted to change his name. “Great to see you, but we want to change your name,” Reeves recounted. After Reeves suggested the names Chuck Spadina or Templeton Paige Taylor, his manager decided to stick with Keanu Reeves.

In a 2021 interview with NBC Asian American, Reeves said, “My relationship to my Asian identity, it’s always been good and healthy. And I love it. We’ve been growing up together.” 

Yara Shahidi is of Black and Iranian descent. In a 2017 interview with Teen Vogue, where she opened up about being biracial, Shahidi said, “Being someone that is half Black and half Iranian and proud of both sides, it gave me a community of people that identify as ‘Blackish.'”

She continued, “Because so many times, if you are of any race, there is a certain feeling of this meter of like, ‘How Black am I? How Iranian am I?’ and it’s hard when you’re both to feel as though you can coexist as both and be fully both.'”

Daniel Henney is of Korean and English descent. In a 2007 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Henney talked about his family and experience growing up in Michigan. His mother was born in Busan, Korea, but was adopted into an American family as an infant, while his father is American with English roots. 

Despite experiencing racism, Henney said that he didn’t think about being mixed race as a child in small-town Michigan, “a very naive place of 1,100 people where all the kids there ever thought about was hunting and fishing. I always just thought of myself as a white guy.” However, his friends would tease him by bowing to him or taunt him about ramen noodles, which his mother stocked in the kitchen. Sometimes these would escalate to physical fights, with Henney noting, “I grew up in a rural area. You get your racism there.”

In a 2018 interview with Asia Pacific Arts, Henney discussed playing the biracial Asian American character Matthew Simmons on Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders: “Simmons being biracial has really added an amazing element to this character for me. It’s not usual, it’s not normal for an Asian American actor to be able to play a role like Simmons, where he’s the quintessential American. He’s the guy the viewers need to depend on, he’s a family man, he embodies what you want in a special agent, a tactical guy. And I don’t think that that responsibility has been given to an Asian American actor in a long time. So I’m very proud to play Simmons. … It’s been a very fulfilling experience, and I hope it continues.”

Karreuche Tran is of Black and Vietnamese descent. In an interview with Jet magazine, she said, “I’m all for persity and anything multicultural. I’m half Black and half Vietnamese and grew up very perse. I had an Asian godmother and Korean best friends, so being a Black actor and being involved in the industry is amazing.” 

Tran expanded, “I would love to be able to contribute to the community of African American actors. We need more of them out there, just period. People look at me and ask, ‘What are you?’ and I tell them, ‘Black and Vietnamese,’ and they think that’s really cool. I love and am happy that I’m able to bridge these two cultures.”

Jade Thirlwall is of Yemeni, Egyptian, and English descent. In a 2020 interview with the No Country for Young Women podcast, Thirlwall opened up about her family and experience growing up mixed race: “A lot of people don’t know that I’m mixed race, or if they do, they’ve got no idea of my ethnicity. … My granddad was a Muslim from Yemen. He settled in South Shields [in the UK] and married my granny, who was Egyptian — but I never met her because she died when my mam was 4.

“Growing up mixed race in a working-class town has its issues,” she continued. “It was interesting for me, growing up in an Arab community. My granddad really wanted me to be Muslim, bless him! My mam made me go to church on Sunday, but I went to Muslim school on Saturdays — it was next to the local mosque, where my grandfather went. I enjoyed it, but I’m not religious. I wish I’d stuck at it because I’m trying to relearn Arabic.”

Thirlwall further reflected, “My grandfather was proud of being Arab and always encouraged me to stand up for who I was. Once that figure left, that disappeared a bit. Now I’m grown up and have more of an education about what racism and prejudice are, I see how crazy some of the things that happened to me growing up actually are. If you weren’t evidently Black, you were called the P-word or called ‘half-caste.’ I would get so confused because I’m not from Pakistan. One time I got pinned down in the toilets, and they put a bindi spot on my forehead — my mam was fuming!

“I’d identify myself as mixed race. If I delved deeper, I’d say of Arab heritage, I guess. I’ve had an inner battle of not knowing where I fit in or what larger community I fit into,” she concluded. “When I moved to London, it was a whole different ball game, being around people who recognized me as being mixed. I definitely felt more accepted. I feel sad that through my teenage years, I was never proud of who I was, and it took me coming into adulthood and living in a different environment to learn about who I am, be more proud of it, and speak more about it!”

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is of Black and Samoan descent. His father is former professional wrestler Rocky Johnson, the first Black Georgia heavyweight champion, and his maternal grandfather, Peter Maivia, was a Samoan American professional wrestler.

In 2019, Johnson responded to a Twitter debate about his identity and responded, “Glad I came across this and I’ll give you guys some context & truth. I identify as exactly what I am — both. Equally proud. Black/Samoan.”

In a 2021 interview with Cigar Aficionado, Johnson opened up about the discrimination he faced growing up Black and Samoan, revealing, “The majority of my growing up was all throughout the South. When I was a kid, up until I was 10, 11 years old, we were in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, so it was predominantly throughout the South, where racial prejudice was pretty prevalent, pretty strong. … I knew it, and I would want to fight everybody.”

Because he moved a lot, Johnson explained that he “was always the new kid in school who looked much different than everybody else.” 

Conrad Ricamora is of Filipino, German, and Irish descent. His mother is from New Hampshire, while his father immigrated to the US from the Philippines at age 10. Of his parents, Ricamora noted in a 2018 interview with the Los Angeles Times, “It’s so funny to think they were both immigrants, but they would have been treated very differently today because of the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes. They would not be granted the same welcome.”

Growing up as a gay Asian child on Air Force bases in the ’80s and ’90s, Ricamora felt out of place surrounded by “macho” culture. He was bullied for his sexuality in junior high and would sit in the front of the school bus to avoid being bullied for his race. In a 2019 interview with American Theatre, Ricamora recalled, “My best friend made fun of my race and I went along with it because I didn’t have anyone else to hang out with.” 

He also talked about his motivation for acting as a gay Asian man: “What attracted me to acting is getting up onstage and speaking my truth. There are basic human truths that live in all of us no matter our race or sexual orientation. And that’s still what I want to do … That’s the reason why I was like, when I started acting, this is my career, this is what I want to do with my life. It feels like a noble thing to do.”

Naomi Scott is of Indian and English descent. Speaking about her background in an interview with Teen Vogue, she said, “There were moments growing up where you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t really feel Indian enough.’ But now I’m at a place where I’m like, ‘You know what? It’s okay. It doesn’t make me any less Indian, or any less half Indian.’ My two favorite meals — one is my mum’s curry and one being a roast dinner. And that is me in a nutshell.”

About her experience in Hollywood, Scott shared, “There’s a thing of someone [being] like, ‘She’s not white, she’s not Black, she’s not Latina, what is she?’ There were definitely a few leads that I went for where I think, ultimately, I was maybe the other choice, the ‘exotic’ choice, or the ‘other.’”

Ariana Miyamoto is of Black and Japanese descent. She entered the Miss Universe Japan pageant as a way to fight against racial prejudice after a mixed-race friend died by suicide. However, she faced abuse and backlash over her skin color. In a 2015 interview with AFP, she said, “I was prepared for the criticism. I’d be lying to say it didn’t hurt at all. I’m Japanese — I stand up and bow when I answer the phone. But that criticism did give me extra motivation.”

She continued, “I didn’t feel any added pressure because the reason I took part in the pageant was my friend’s death. My goal was to raise awareness of racial discrimination. Now I have a great platform to deliver that message as the first Black Miss Universe Japan. It’s always hard to be the first.”

As for her own childhood, Miyamoto shared, “I used to get bullied as a kid, but I’ve got mentally stronger, to protect myself. When I was small, I stood out and always felt I had to fit in with everyone. I’d try not to bring attention to myself, but now I say what I feel. I do things my own way. I want to start a revolution.”

Jemaine Clement is of Māori and European descent. He’s a direct descendant of Wairarapa chief Irāia Te Whāiti, who was a Ngāti Kahungunu leader, farmer, and historian.

In a 2015 interview with Stuff, Clement talked about being mixed race: “I’m part white, but I’m not just white. And I don’t think of myself as white, because I wasn’t brought up that way. When they say ‘white guys’ when they’re talking about me and Taika [Waititi], they’re imagining a completely different life, completely different things. They’re imagining this privilege that we didn’t have.”

He also noted the attention People Places Things received in the US for his onscreen “interracial” romance with Regina Hall. “As a mixed-race person, I see race as largely bullshit. Anything I do is interracial! One great thing about New Zealand is, ‘interracial’ doesn’t mean anything. We’re used to it.”

Lewis Tan is of Chinese and English descent. His father, Philip Tan, is a Chinese Singaporean martial artist, actor, and stunt coordinator (who worked on Tim Burton’s Batman), and his mother, Joanne Cassidy, is a retired British model. 

In a 2018 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Tan expressed, “Being mixed in an industry that has been known for casting [people of color] as stereotypes has been frustrating and tiring, but has also made me a better actor and performer because I have had to convince casting directors and producers I am the ONLY choice for the role. As we go into 2018, I think the industry is starting to see the world from a broader perspective. It’s about time, and I am very grateful for all the hard times that has built me up.”

He added, “I love my mixed heritage because it has given me depth and perspective on the world. It has also been challenging in the film industry, but at the same time [it] created a deep discovery of who I am as a man, and I am proud of my heritage.”

Shay Mitchell is of Filipino, Irish, and Scottish descent. In a 2021 interview with Women’s Health, Mitchell discussed the perception of her parents’ relationship and her own experiences with racism growing up: 

“It’s something my mom has dealt with her whole life. When she and my dad were dating in the 1980s in Toronto, their relationship was looked down upon. On the bus with my dad, she would get the worst looks. They would tell me about going into a restaurant and people not serving them. I also saw it in real life. My mom would get derogatory remarks like, ‘Are you the cleaning lady? Are you the nanny?’ And she was like, ‘No, but what is your issue if I was?’ In school, I was bullied — I’d get questions like, ‘Are you going to go clean the bathrooms?’”

Mitchell also talked about navigating race as a mother, explaining, “Matte [Mitchell’s partner and her daughter Atlas’s father] is half white — his dad is from Trinidad. And Atlas is a mix of all of us. But she’s very fair skinned and has light eyes and hair, so she doesn’t look like either of us. We’re learning how to have those appropriate conversations. It starts with her dolls, with the toys she plays with, and the books we read to her, that have all different colors and ethnicities.”

Enrique Iglesias is of Spanish and Filipino descent. He was born in Madrid to Spanish singer Julio Iglesias and Filipina journalist and socialite Isabel Preysler.

When asked in an interview what country he would like to help, Enrique Iglesias responded, “A lot of countries in Latin America, because they’ve given me so much in return. And another country would be the Philippines because I’m part Filipino.”

Alexa Chung is of Chinese and English descent. In 2009, she tweeted, “I’m 3/8 chinese 5/8 english. A very silly fraction. Less than a half, more than a quarter. Pass it on so I don’t have to explain again. Thanks.”

Despite this, Chung’s descent seems to have remained a topic of confusion to many. In 2016, the Telegraph reported that there are 42,000 Google searches every year relating to her ethnicity.

Olivia Rodrigo is of Filipino, German, and Irish descent. In a 2018 interview with the Center for Asian American Media, she opened up about her Filipino heritage: “My great-grandfather immigrated here from the Philippines when he was just a teenager. He’s my grandma’s dad, and my grandpa is also Filipino as well.

“My dad grew up in a house where they were always making Filipino food, his grandpa always spoke Tagalog. All of those traditions have trickled down to our generation. Every Thanksgiving we have lumpia, and things like that.”

Nicole Scherzinger is of Filipino, Native Hawaiian, and Russian descent. She was born in Hawaii, and in an interview with Pacific Citizen, she said, “My mother, growing up, would dance the hula and Tahitian with her family. My mother taught me hula when I was really young.”

She also opened up about being a mixed-race artist, explaining that she faced challenges getting work “especially because I started out in theater, and a lot of people didn’t understand what my nationality was or what race I was. So they were a little confused on how to cast me or what my place was. But it was really confusing at first because people wanted me to be like the Puerto Rican girl, the sidekick, the Puerto Rican best friend.”

Hayley Kiyoko is of Japanese, Welsh, and Scottish descent. In a 2017 interview at SXSW, she talked about how being biracial influenced her: “Naturally, being biracial shapes you as a person because you experience different things. As an actress, for example, I’m constantly going out for Asian American roles, and ‘I’m not Asian enough.’ They will flat-out say that. Then I’ll go out for open-ethnicity roles, and they will go, ‘You’re not white enough.’ It’s just part of who I am and what I look like.”

In a 2021 interview with People magazine, Kiyoko further opened up, sharing, “Growing up biracial — my mom’s Japanese Canadian and my dad’s Caucasian — it took a long time for me to really connect and embrace my Asian heritage. I was never white enough, I was never Asian enough, but I also was never straight enough. For most of my adolescence, my sexuality kind of took over my struggle with fitting into society, and then, as I was able to learn and accept myself later in life, I started to unpack my culture and my roots.

“I just didn’t really have the space to do so when I was younger,” she shared, “because I was just extremely gay and I didn’t have an outlet or felt like I had a community that I belonged to, and so that really took over most of my youth.”

Henry Golding is of English and Malaysian descent. He opened up about being mixed race in a 2018 interview with Bustle: “I felt like if you were an Asian mix, were you allowed to belong in any society or were you just meant to be on the outskirts?”

Golding expanded, saying, “Just because, by blood, I’m not full Asian doesn’t mean I can’t own my Asianness. And I relate so much more with my Asian side.”

Charles Melton is of Korean and English descent. In a 2019 interview with Mixed Asian Media, Melton said, “To be on both sides, being Caucasian and Asian, how inclusive or exclusive do you want to be when it comes to race, with being Asian? It’s weird when some people try to measure your Asianness, when it’s like, ‘I’m Asian.’ It’s so extreme. ‘Oh, you’re half, but you’re not Asian.’ I am Asian. I’m probably more ‘Asian’ than you. I grew up in Korea. I grew up speaking Korean and being spanked by my mom with the rice spoon.

“Then you have people in America that are second or third generation, but they’re fully Asian. Do they see themselves as more ‘Asian’ than you when you’re just half or a quarter? When you grew up in Asia? How do you measure that? If you’re Asian, you’re Asian. If it runs through your blood, it runs through your blood. How exclusive do you want to be?

“When I was in Korea, people knew I was Korean, but they knew I wasn’t full. When I’m somewhere like Kansas or Texas, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re Asian.’ Depending on where you are in the world or the US affects how people are going to measure your ‘Asianness.'”

Darren Criss is of Filipino, Chinese, Spanish, English, German, and Irish descent. In a 2020 interview with People, Criss opened up about his identity: “I’ve been half Filipino my whole life. But no one ever asked about it. It’s tough, this idea of ‘white-passing.’ It’s not even a term I heard of until the past two years. When people have a say in who you are — people you don’t even know — it makes you rethink what your balance is. Something you’ve had down your whole life. It’s a tricky cocktail in America.” He continued, “I’ve always been proud of my heritage, of being Filipino. Just because people don’t see it doesn’t make it any less real to me.”

In an interview with the Wrap later that year, Criss expanded, “You’re dealing with two experiences that present different reactions. Not only internally, but externally. Who are you to the world? How do they see you? How do you see yourself? What happens if you happen to look more like one half than the other? Which one are you?

“In my mind, I was just me. My mom’s Filipino and my dad’s a white guy, and that’s just kind of how it is. You could argue, ‘Well, maybe that’s because you’re white-passing and nobody ever questioned anything.’” He added, “And then I feel bad and I go, ‘Oh god, did I somehow turn my back on my Filipino-ness?’ Like, at what point am I supposed to raise my hand higher for that? I don’t know the answer.”

Jessie Mei Li is of Chinese and English descent. In a 2021 interview with the Beat, Li talked about her own childhood: “Growing up as a mixed-race person, I rarely saw anyone who looked like me, let alone Asian people, generally. And if they were onscreen, they were always a fairly two-dimensional role, a lot of times, especially in Western TV shows and films.”

She continued, “I think, for lots of people [who are] mixed race or first-generation immigrants, you spend so much of your life not feeling like you belong anywhere. I certainly grew up in a predominantly white area, and I was always ‘the Chinese one’ to my white friends, but to my Asian friends and family, I was very English, and you never really feel like you belong anywhere. My race is a big part of my life, but it’s not everything that I am.”

Bruno Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, is of Filipino, Spanish, Puerto Rican, and Jewish descent. In a 2017 interview with Latina magazine, Mars reflected on not being easily categorizable: “There are a lot of people who have this mixed background that are in this gray zone. A lot of people think, This is awesome. You’re in this gray zone, so you can pass for whatever the hell you want. But it’s not like that at all. It’s actually the exact opposite.”

Mars continued, “What we’re trying to do is educate people to know what that feels like so they’ll never make someone feel like that ever again. Which is a hard thing to do. Because no one can see what we see, and no one can grow up with what we grew up with.”

Devon Aoki is of Japanese, German, and English descent. In a 2006 interview with Rotten Tomatoes, Aoki discussed her identity: “My mom is German English. I grew up with my mom, but I can’t escape the way I look, and my whole life I’ve had a strong sense of self because of it. I’ve watched my father [Benihana restaurateur Rocky Aoki] and all of the achievements he’s made; I’ve always wanted to follow in his footsteps in some ways in changing the dynamic of how Asians are interpreted.”

She then expanded, “There weren’t a lot of people who were even allowed to represent for our culture, being from the East. So every movie I do, that’s a thought in my head that I have to represent for Asian people. That’s really important to me.”

Chanel Iman is of Black and Korean descent. In a 2009 interview with Teen Vogue, Chanel revealed which of her cover shoots her mother — who is also Korean and Black — favored: Korean Vogue.

“This one is really important to my mom,” she explained, “My mother was born in Korea, but they didn’t accept her back then because she was [mixed] with Black. She was put up for adoption when she was a baby. Now her daughter is on the cover of Korean Vogue!”

Jessica Henwick is of Zambian English and Chinese Singaporean descent. In a 2020 interview with Mixed Asia Media, Henwick talked in detail about her identity: “When I first visited Hawaii, I was called Hapa all the time. It’s nice to acknowledge mixed-race ancestry — it’s more than just DNA. It’s about your interests, your palate…being raised with a foot in two different cultures. The beauty of that, as well as the obstacles you face.”

As for her own childhood in England, Henwick shared, “I grew up in an area with no Asians. My brothers and I were the first nonwhite students at our school. It was rough, I won’t lie. But it built in me a mental armor that got me to where I am today. I find it interesting to look back at just how effectively I would compartmentalize. I think anyone who has grown up between two cultures can understand this. I would completely code-switch, depending on where I was and who I was with.

“I had two lives: the first where I went to a Roman Catholic school, ate mashed potatoes at lunch, and played conkers with the kids in the playground, and the second where I would spend months with my ma running up jungle trails in Ipoh, [Malaysia,] staining my hands purple with mangosteen and bathing out of a rainwater bucket.

“When I would go to Singapore or Malaysia, our friends there would struggle to understand my British accent for the first few weeks. And when I returned to the UK, my school friends would laugh at me because my voice had changed, they said. I could not for the life of me hear it, but I’m sure they were right.”

Jhené Aiko is of Spanish, Dominican, Japanese, Native American, Black, and German heritage. In a 2019 interview with Revolt TV, Aiko talked about the pressure she faced to conform to the entertainment industry’s standards: “When I started going on auditions, they would put me for roles [as] the Spanish girl, or the Japanese girl or the Black girl.”

She continued, “When I was 12 [or] 13, someone told my mom, ‘You should really play up one or the other. You should straighten her hair so she could look more Asian, or you should keep her hair natural and curly and put a little bronzer on her so she [will] look more Black.”

Ross Butler is of English Dutch and Chinese Malaysian descent. In a 2020 interview with Harper’s Bazaar, Butler discussed how he felt growing up mixed race in America and how he turned to film as a means of escapism: “You don’t really feel like you belong. You don’t feel like you have people you can lean on or who understand what you’re going through; it was isolating. I became a social chameleon. I got really good at fitting the mold of who I thought people saw me as.”

Olivia Munn is of German, Irish, English, and Chinese descent. She predominantly grew up in Japan, though the family moved back to Oklahoma for her last two years of high school.

When asked about the struggles she encountered trying to establish herself in a 2019 interview with Prestige Hong Kong, Munn revealed, “I’d go out for so many auditions, for everything. And then I’d be told, ‘You’re too Asian’ or ‘You’re too white.’ I remember someone telling me, ‘Don’t feel bad. One day they won’t be trying to match you to fit with anyone else. You’ll just be hired for you.’ So you can’t help but get frustrated. That’s part of it all.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is of Jamaican and Indian descent. In her 2019 memoir, The Truths We Hold, Harris explained that she and her younger sister, Maya, “were raised with a strong awareness of and appreciation for Indian culture,” but that her mother still “understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women.”

In an interview with the Washington Post, Harris asserted, “[W]hen I first ran for office that was one of the things that I struggled with, which is that you are forced through that process to define yourself in a way that you fit neatly into the compartment that other people have created. My point was: I am who I am. I’m good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I’m fine with it.”

Kimiko Glenn is of Japanese, Scottish, Irish, and German descent. In a 2018 interview with IndieWire, Glenn talked about how she has had more opportunities in voice acting than in acting: “It opens up the whole voiceover world to me because you can’t see my face. I get to express myself however I want.”

She continued, “Being biracial in this industry is kind of an interesting thing. I’ve always been hyperaware of that because I’ve been told so many times, ‘You’re not Asian or white enough.'”

Sir Ben Kingsley, born Krishna “Krish” Pandit Bhanji, is of Indian and English descent. When asked in a 2010 interview with the Daily Mail about his childhood in Salford, UK, in the ’50s, Kingsley said, “My father as GP, being a sort of emblem in that Salford pond, made us more celebrated as curiosities than ostracized as people who didn’t belong. Then, I think 1 in 4 of the students at my school was Jewish. Every single one of my friends was Jewish. My mother was half Jewish, so I felt a part of exotic, cosmopolitan Manchester. I was fortunate.'”

When he began auditioning, Kingsley used his original name: “I was sitting there waiting to go on with my audition piece, and someone said, ‘Christina Blange?’ I said, ‘I think that’s me.’ And I couldn’t quite get my cojones back to do a decent audition.” His father then suggested he call himself something English-sounding, so they came up with ‘Kingsley’ from his grandfather’s spice trader nickname, King Clove. At his next audition, he went under the name of Ben Kingsley. “They said, ‘When can you start?'”

In a 2016 interview with Radio Times, Kingsley remarked, “But the irony is, of course, I changed my clunky, invented Asian name to a more pronounceable, and acceptable, universal name in order to play Mahatma Gandhi. There’s your irony.”

Mark-Paul Gosselaar is of Dutch and Indonesian descent. In a 2019 interview with Newsweek, Gosselaar was asked if his own interracial experiences helped him bring depth to his TV family on Mixed-ish:

“Being someone who is mixed, I never had to think about it until it was brought up because of the way I looked. I was arguably America’s favorite white boy at one point, and it’s like, ‘Wait, that guy is mixed?’ It’s one of those things that because of the way I looked, I didn’t have to deal with it. It’s a conversation I have had and I do have with my kids because they are — as well — mixed.”

When speaking to Hollywood Outbreak in 2021 about Mixed-ish, he said, “Back in the ’80s, I think people struggled with knowing what a mixed family really was. I am a product of a mixed family. My father is Dutch, and my mother’s Indonesian. Because I looked the way I did, I really never had to go through some of the experiences that some of the characters on [Mixed-ish] are going through, and that’s fortunate and unfortunate.” 

He continued, “Nowadays, people are much more accepting. There’s been a lot more discussion about it. I think there’s still a long way to go, but we are trending in a direction that I think is positive. And on our show, we try to tackle those issues through the lens of comedy, which I think is an easy way for people to digest the message.”

Maggie Q, whose full name is Margaret Denise Quigley, is of Vietnamese, Polish, and Irish descent. In a 2008 interview with Today, Q explained that after she left the Hong Kong film industry to come to the US, American filmmakers were confused by her biracial background:

“They think, Wow, what is this? There’s this girl. She’s Asian, but she’s not. … They’re really not sure where to put me. It’s a struggle. You got to win roles. You really got to fight for them. When I left Asia and went to the US, essentially I was starting over. It’s very hard. It’s a lot of work.”

Vanessa Hudgens is of Filipino, Chinese, Spanish, French, Irish, and Native American descent. In a 2011 interview with Reuters, Hudgens talked about how she sees her mixed identity as a positive: “I wasn’t Latin enough or Asian enough or Caucasian enough. I’m never going to be anything enough because I’m different things. The one thing I’m really blessed with is my various ethnic backgrounds.”

In a 2021 interview with Glamour, Hudgens opened up about her mother and Southeast Asian representation in film: “My mom is from the Philippines, and growing up, there weren’t really that many women who looked like me and my mom and my family onscreen. It’s so important to share all the different stories because America is a massive melting pot, [just like the] world. There are so many different stories that need to be told so that we are exposed to them and can have more empathy towards different people.”

She added, “As an immigrant, coming into the States and not knowing anyone, I can’t even imagine how difficult and challenging that is and what challenges she faced as a woman.”

Kristin Kreuk is of Chinese and Dutch descent. In a 2017 interview with DC Comics News, Kreuk talked about her experience as a mixed Asian actor: “I started a long time ago, and my first job I played a half-Asian girl, which is my heritage. Which didn’t happen again until I guess Street Fighter? I played my heritage, and then every role after that shut out playing my heritage. So I often played white characters because I have wide eyes, and my hair is actually not blonde, but my natural hair color is light because I didn’t challenge them in the way that I looked. It didn’t come up as an issue for me. So personally, I didn’t think I felt the limitation for my career.

“But I believe there is a strong issue that I have friends who are fully Chinese who really struggle to get their careers off the ground because there just isn’t the roles available. Like, if I’m looking for, in Canada, an actress to play my mom: Chinese actress, I guess if she’s young, in her 50s, if she’s the right age, probably in her 60s. They are hard to find. I just don’t think there has been the opportunities available for people.

“And I think that is changing and obviously, people like Constance Wu and those guys are really shifting the narrative on that. Even if we’re talking Indian, Aziz Ansari. I think what they are doing is really important. And in Canada, it’s still a big issue. I don’t know, apart from Kim’s Convenience [a Canadian comedy], I don’t think we have a lot available. And I think stuff like this helps — making sure the characters [are authentic] for me now, I won’t play outside of being mixed race. Because I have the opportunity to do it, and that will help slowly.”

Michael Yo is of Black and Korean descent. In a 2013 interview with HalfKorean, Yo talked about growing up mixed in Texas: “I was pretty much the only mixed kid in school. In Houston, I went to a predominantly white school, and if you were Black, you were Black, and if you were Asian, you were Asian. There [were] no mixed kids. It was different times back then, especially in that area. I got called all kinds of racist names. When kids don’t know what you are, they can be very mean. They were trying to be mean, but they didn’t know how it affected me. I was very insecure growing up being both.”

He continued, “When I hung out with Asian kids, the Black kids would get mad. When I grew up, I guess I connected most with the Black and white kids because I played sports, and I wasn’t a great student. We had one [Asian kid] on our basketball team, then a couple of Black kids, and then mostly white kids. I didn’t really connect with my Asian side until I started doing stand-up.”

Karen O, whose full name is Karen Lee Orzolek, is of Korean and Polish descent. O was born in South Korea, and her family moved to the US before she was 3. In a 2013 interview with the New York Times, she discussed how she struggled to assimilate: “I didn’t speak Korean, so I couldn’t hang with the Koreans. And when I’d hang out with the whiteys, I was always self-conscious about being half Korean.”

By eighth grade, O was forced to reckon with what it meant to be different: “I was hanging with some popular girls, but sort of as their pet. I was the novelty, you know? And then it turned on me in a pretty dramatic way.” She told the New York Times that this experience caused her to identify as a “weirdo,” which ultimately led her to rock ‘n’ roll.