I understand where you’re coming from as an Asian-American man. But for those who don’t know what you’re speaking of, can you elaborate?
When you talk about Asian-American masculinity, the way the U.S. kind of views that, it’s Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan. I experience this a lot with my teammates asking me honest questions. When I have these conversations, I’m like, ‘Dang, we’re very far off from where I wish we were.’
When you think of Asian-Americans, you think of a lot of different things —
the model minority, the
bamboo ceiling, so many different things. If you look at the way Asians are portrayed in media, in Hollywood and mainstream movies, the majority of the time it’s a refined lawyer, an IT guy, a nerd or dork. Even as I came out and started to play well, a lot of the jokes that were being said and a lot of the
hate coming the other way, I was like, ‘Man, some of this is purely because I’m Asian.’ For me, that really opened my eyes up to the reality of this world.
For me, Bruce Lee was this paradox. I love this guy because he’s awesome. But everywhere I go, people would call me ‘Bruce Lee.’ So I’d love him and hate him at the same time. Did you have that feeling?
It’s different for me, but everywhere I went people called me ‘Yao Ming’ because I was playing basketball. I’m not 7-foot-6. I wasn’t born and raised in China. There are so many things that are different about our stories, but they had nothing else to call me, so they called me ‘Yao Ming.’ Same with every kid growing up now that’s Asian. When they play on the court, they call them ‘Jeremy Lin.’ That just shows you how everyone sees, like, ‘Oh, you’re Asian, you’re Jeremy Lin. Oh, you’re Asian, you’re Yao Ming.’ It’s not even a differentiation between types of Asian.
It’s almost like you have to be representative of your whole race. Not just Chinese, I’m talking about Asians. Is that a weird sentiment that you have to represent an entire race?
Yeah. At first it was something I ran from and really struggled with. Now I embrace it way more and am more equipped to handle it. I’m not perfect, but I kind of know who I want to be at this point in my career, so I keep trucking along and doing things the right way and stay above all the distractions.