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The Case For ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ And AAPI Representation In The Legal Profession

It is hard to measure the impact of representation in our media, entertainment, education, and profession.

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Actors Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding, Constance Wu, Ken Jeong and Awkwafina (Photo by Desiree Navarro/WireImage)

“We got a foot in / Being good is good, that’ll get you Drew Gooden / But me, I want Jordan numbers, LeBron footing / Can’t guard me, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden.” — J. Cole

Jon Chu’s movie Crazy Rich Asians (CRA), featuring Constance Wu, opened last weekend in the U.S. against Peter Berg’s Mile 22, which features Mark Wahlberg. It was quite apropos that CRA beat the brakes off of Mile 22’s earnings at the box office.

In my inaugural ATL article, I wrote about Mark Wahlberg’s past violent acts of beating a Vietnamese man unconscious  and permanently blinding another — all while calling them “slant-eyed gooks.” Suffice it to say, I will not be rushing to buy movie tickets for Mile 22.

As someone who grew up several blocks from Detroit’s infamous 8 Mile (as popularized by the movie of the same name featuring Eminem) and a bike ride away to Woodward Ave., in a town facing drastic socioeconomic changes, the movie Gran Torino resonated with me. Gran Torino was filmed in Highland Park, MI — the same town where Vincent Chin was beaten to death by two men and their baseball bat a week before his wedding.

In addition to Wahlberg’s violence against Asian Americans, I also covered Chin’s death in my initial ATL post because it serves as a reminder to many in the Metro-Detroit community of the region’s racial and economic struggles. It is a stark reminder of how we are sometimes viewed as “other.”

It is hard to measure the impact of representation in our media, entertainment, education, and profession. CRA’s opening weekend numbers were nice, but there is a much larger meaning to so many in the audience than that of the standard romantic comedy flick and its ticket sales. To many Asian Americans, CRA is more than just a movie — it is a movement.

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Hollywood isn’t very diverse. Neither is the legal profession. Harkening back to my 92% rule:

When only 8% of stories are selected, voted on, written about, or reviewed by people of color, you may begin to believe in a narrative — that as a minority — your voice isn’t worth hearing or listening to. Or even worse yet, you aren’t worthy or interesting.

As Star Wars actor Kellie Marie Tran — the first woman of color to have a leading role in the franchise — wrote this week, in a New York Times piece, about her harassment by social media trolls:

Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.

And those words awakened something deep inside me — a feeling I thought I had grown out of. The same feeling I had when at 9, I stopped speaking Vietnamese altogether because I was tired of hearing other kids mock me….

Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was ‘other,’ that I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough, simply because I wasn’t like them. And that feeling, I realize now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from….

I believed those words, those stories, carefully crafted by a society that was built to uphold the power of one type of person — one sex, one skin tone, one existence.

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In her inaugural Golden Globe appearance in 2015, Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez won the Best Actress in a TV Comedy award. In her acceptance speech, Rodriguez declared, “This award is so much more than myself. It represents a culture that wants to be seen as heroes.”

Backstage, Rodriguez teared up and stated “the nomination alone was a win for me because it allowed Latinos to see themselves in a beautiful light…. We are dealing with a society that is so diverse, so beautiful and so human. We need to remember that we have the same stories, and see it as such.”

When everything has been curated, tailored, and targeted to your tastes as a member of the majority, it may be hard to comprehend why a little book, short, or movie may seem like such a big deal to a person in the minority. But these stories can help to transform how current and future generations understand the world. The stories we tell ourselves can fundamentally alter our perspective on life —and the lot in life we choose to negotiate and accept. Narratives can provide hope and hope springs eternal.

Some recent headlines about Asian Americans in the workforce certainly present a cause for concern:

Asian actors compose 3.9% of speaking roles in American films. Asian attorneys compose 2.7% of partners in U.S. law firms. Even though the structures and frameworks in which we operate may be invisible, bamboo ceilings and glass ceilings are very real. And even though unconscious or implicit bias is hard to detect, its effect becomes rather noticeable to an industry or profession that stubbornly supports the status quo.

When only 8% of leaders in your profession are people of color, you may start to believe — that as a diverse attorney — you won’t be good enough to succeed in the law. Or worse yet, you don’t deserve to be in the profession at all.

Representation matters. It is why the recent blockbuster releases of Wonder Woman and Black Panther are so empowering to women and African Americans, respectively. It is why the 25-year-old movie Joy Luck Club is so near and dear to Asian Americans. When I was a kid, I had no idea how unique the 1994 All-American Girl sitcom featuring Margaret Cho was for television programming. I hope it won’t take another 20+ years for there to be a follow-up to Fresh Off the Boat, or for minorities in the law to grow by more than 1%.

I’m sure it is easy to pledge yourself to the “colorblind” principle when the majority of all you see on your screens is white, your profession is white, and the world around you is white. Elite law schools aren’t diverse. Neither are Biglaw firms. The legal profession is the least diverse profession in our country. And we aren’t doing enough to change it.

Just as the movie Creed breathed new life and brought more diversity into an old franchise and made it even better, I believe, with concerted effort, we can breathe new life and bring more diversity into an old, staunch profession. And yes, we can make the legal profession better than it has been.

The most emotive, tear-jerking scene in CRA revolves around a mahjong table. As they engage in battle on the table and across the table, the protagonist Rachel Chu (played by Constance Wu) tells her nemesis Eleanor Young (played by Michelle Yeoh) who views Chu as “other”: When you ultimately attain the ends you seek — it will be because I, a “poor, raised by a single mother, low-class immigrant nobody,” made it possible.

This line has so many levels and it not only brought tears to my eyes, it caused the group of women next to me, who were dressed in traditional Chinese dresses (qípáos), to weep aloud. These women would’ve been around my age when Joy Luck Club was released in theatres. What legacies did they inherit? When have they been made to feel as “other,” poor, low-class immigrant nobodies? How much have they witnessed since that time? What was the significance of this movie and scene to them? I can only imagine.

I can’t remember the first time I felt distinctly “other.” Maybe it was when I was five or six years old and our family Plymouth stalled on the I-75 expressway. While my dad, mom, and I were stranded hoping for help, a passenger rode by and yelled at us: “Ch*nks belong in rice burners.” My dad sold our family car soon after this incident and we never replaced it.

Maybe it was when the neighborhood kids nicknamed me Data (from Goonies) and Short Round (from Indiana Jones), which were ironically played by the same actor (Jonathan Ke Quan). Maybe it was in high school when opposing basketball crowds would taunt me with racially charged chants during my free throws (although I didn’t really mind the Michael Chang and Yao Ming references too much). Or when my girlfriend’s parent’s told her: “Cardinals stick with cardinals, and blue jays fly with blue jays.”

It is hard to communicate just how uplifting a role like Rufio in the movie Hook or an athlete like Jeremy Lin in the NBA can be to a boy who at times has been made to feel as a “perpetual foreigner” or “other” in this country. It is hard to measure how much impact role models and leader of colors in the legal profession can be to minority law school students who are intimidated by this sacrosanct industry.

For these type of trailblazers establish the blueprint for “others” on how to succeed in their careers. They’re examples that we do belong, that we are good enough. Their paths can give us a feeling of pride for what makes us different, for the cultures from which we come from. Their actions can transform the stories we tell ourselves. And their achievements shine in a beautiful light.

It is long past due for diverse stories like Crazy Rich Asians to be greenlit, without being whitewashed, and given an opportunity to showcase their worth. There is a compelling business case for diverse stories in Hollywood. The evidence can no longer be denied.

Attorneys of color have increased by one percentage point since 2000. And only one in five minority associates will last five years at a law firm. Yet the case for diversity in the legal profession is just as strong as the case for inclusion in the entertainment industry. What further evidence do we need to provide?

Representation deserves a proper hearing in our top law schools, law firms, and courtrooms. Representation is much more than any statistic. It is our stories and experiences. It is a rich tapestry of what our profession can be. It provides hope and hope springs eternal.

Renwei Chung is the Diversity Columnist at Above the Law. You can contact Renwei by email at [email protected], follow him on Twitter (@renweichung), or connect with him on LinkedIn. 

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