Asian American Empowerment - An Open Letter To Kelly Hu

By Julia Oh
AAMovement.net
September 2003

Dear Kelly Hu,

I don't know you all too well, but I do know some things. I know that you were once crowned as Miss Teen USA. As a young Asian girl at the time, I was ecstatic. To see an Asian woman stand tall in front of a sea of blond hair and blue green eyes was both refreshing and empowering. I also know that you starred in "Growing Pains", "Sunset Beach", "Nash Bridges", and "Martial Law". I know these things, not because I am a follower of models-turned-Hollywood-actors, but because you are an Asian American woman, and every time I saw you, it was a validation of my existence in a white-dominated world. So when your claim to fame came (read: when white people came to know you as Kelly Hu and not just "some hot Asian chick") starring opposite The Rock in The Scorpion King, I, like thousands of Asian Americans who followed your budding career and rooted for you, already knew who you were.

You see, whether you like it or not, you represent hundreds upon thousands of Asians, including me, and especially those living in America. This is not a choice, but a condition, because there are so few prominent Asians in the American media- something you yourself have recognized in past media interviews. In fact, this holds true not just in the eyes of Asians, but also in the eyes of non-Asians- you are referred to by waves of white men as the "fine Asian girl who kicked ass in Nash Bridges" or as the "cute Asian girl in Surf Ninjas" (I am refraining from citing the more vulgar terms you are referred to by white males for obvious reasons).

So when "Stuff" magazine asked you in regards to your "Martial Law" co-star Sammo Hung, "Is his middle name Well or Not Well?" and you curtly replied, "He's Asian-you figure it out," you upset a lot of Asian people.

In one fell swoop, you managed not only to diss on an entire segment of your race (including your former co-star), made Asian women appear malicious and self-hating, and joined the ranks of boors like Eddie Murphy who spewed out in "Delirious", "Chinese people got small dicks so they walk all light."

Was it worth it to make such a tactless, racist joke just to make a few white boys chuckle? Or is it in your nature to be malicious and set back a group of people who are already emasculated, demonized and isolated by American society on a regular basis?

Let's imagine for a moment that the tables were turned. Cosmo asks Sammo Hung in an interview, "Hey, that Kelly Hu's got one pair of hooters. Are they real?" And he answers, "She's Asian-you figure it out." Even as a woman, I have to accede that the breast insult isn't as degrading as the penis one- after all, how many times have we heard the penis joke, and how fixated is American society on the size of a man's urination tool? I also have to wonder if people like you and Eddie Murphy who make the penis joke have actually had live contact with the private parts of an Asian man. Because as someone who has, I can attest that there is nothing inadequate about their size, shape or performance...but let me not fixate on that.

"This is so unfair. I never said I would represent Asian people," you might be exclaiming now. "Why is it that my white colleagues don't hear the same complaints from their white fans?" Well, that's exactly what white privilege is- white people, who run the industry (and the country), make sure that they are represented on every possible arena, which affords them another privilege, called individuality. But I don't want this conversation to get too intellectual. I just hope you have the decency not to brush the whole incident off as one big "joke" that Asians don't know how to handle. I also want you to know that you lost a lot of Asian fans when that interview was printed in July.

So Ms Hu, I will conclude by saying this: if you want to stop bearing the burden of 'representing' Asian folk, you better start working your ass off to eliminate and eradicate racism, rather than promote it.

A representative of the peons,

Julia Oh