March 6, 2023 A.C.E. THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 13 Rise of Asian leads in network TV shows, now ABC’s “Company” By Terry Tang The Associated Press n fourth grade, Catherine Haena Kim could not muster the courage to audition for the female lead of her school’s production of William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. But her teachers saw something in the way she held herself in the classroom. “My teachers actually gave me the part because whenever I did speak up, I was very animated and expressive,” Kim said. “When I did this play, I honestly think it’s one of the first times I actually felt seen and special in a way that I think I really hadn’t before that.” Kim’s teachers subverted a problem that has frustrated many Asian Americans’ career trajectories, whether on screen, in political office, or in an executive suite: receiving praise for being reliable, hard workers, but never quite being perceived as leadership material. Across industries, Asian Americans have long been held back by unquestioned biases rooted in racial stereotypes. Employers often paint Asians as passive, lacking in gravitas, or not a “cultural fit,” said Justin Zhu, co-founder of the advo- cacy group Stand with Asian Americans. An all grown-up Kim (“Ballers,” “Good Trouble”) is now revelling in the thrill and facing the pressure of being the lead on a much bigger stage: She stars opposite Milo Ventimiglia in the new ABC drama, “The Company You Keep,” which premiered February 19. A remake of the Korean drama “My Fellow Citizens,” it centers on the hot and heavy romance between Kim’s CIA agent and Ventimiglia’s con artist. Given network TV’s woeful record of I RARE RELOCATION. Hippos float in the lagoon at Hacienda Napoles Park, once the private estate of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, in this February 16, 2022 file photo. Colombia’s Environment Ministry announced in early February that hippos are an invasive species, in response to a lawsuit against the government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity. (AP Photo/ Fernando Vergara, File) Colombia proposes shipping invasive hippos to India, Mexico Continued from page one Antioquia’s environment ministry. The hippos would be lured with food into large, iron containers and transferred by truck to the international airport in the city of Rionegro, 150 kilometers away. From there, they would be flown to India and Mexico, where there are sanctuaries and zoos capable of taking in and caring for the animals. “It is possible to do, we already have experience relocating hippos in zoos nationwide,” said David Echeverri López, a spokesman for Cornare, the local environmental authority that would be in charge of the relocations. The plan is to send 60 hippos to the Greens Zoological Rescue & Rehabilitation Kingdom in Gujarat, India, which de los Ríos Morales said would cover the cost of the containers and airlift. Another 10 hippos would go to zoos and sanctuaries in Mexico such as the Ostok, located in Sinaloa. “We work with Ernesto Zazueta, who is the president of sanctuaries and zoos in Mexico, who is the one who liaisons with different countries and manages their rescues,” said the official. The plan is to focus on the hippos living in the rivers surrounding the Hacienda Napoles ranch, not the ones inside the ranch because they are in a controlled environment and don’t threaten the local ecosystem. The relocations would help control the hippo population, and though the animals’ native habitat is Africa, it is more humane than the alternate proposal of exterminating them as an invasive species, said de los Ríos Morales. Ecuador, the Philippines, and Botswana have also expressed their willingness to relocate Colombian hippos to their countries, according to the Antioquia Governor’s Office. RISING REPRESENTATION. This file photo made available by ABC shows Constance Wu (“Fresh Off the Boat,” Crazy Rich Asians) in the October 18, 2019 television episode of “Fresh Off the Boat.” After six seasons, the sitcom aired its final show in February of 2020. Across industries, Asian Americans have long been held back by unquestioned biases rooted in ra- cial stereotypes. Despite network TV’s woeful record of failing to cast Asian actors as main characters, there have been some shows making change. (John Fleenor/ABC/File) failing to cast Asian actors as main characters — and increased competition from cable and streaming services — there is an extraordinary number of recent shows that are making change. Other recent broadcast series with Asian or Asian-American leads include “Quantum Leap” (Raymond Lee), “Kung Fu” (Olivia Liang), “The Cleaning Lady” (Elodie Yung), “NCIS: Hawai‘i (Vanessa Lachey), and “Ghosts” (Utkarsh Ambudkar). Advocates are mixed on whether this rise in visibility is a sign that Asian Ameri- cans are actually gaining wider, meaning- ful representation. Over the last decade, there have been ups and downs: For two years, ABC even had two sitcoms with all-Asian casts — “Fresh Off the Boat” and Continued on page 15