The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current, March 06, 2023, Page 13, Image 13

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    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