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This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UC Riverside chapter.

What is the Token Minority?

The token minority was created by the entertainment industry to satisfy the minorities asking for accurate representations of their cultures. This includes having a single actor/actress represent a multitude of ethnicities to satisfy the “requirement” of being inclusive.

Some examples of this are John Cho, Constance Wu, Jamie Chung, Lana Condor. You’ve probably heard of them before and noticed that they often are chosen to represent all Asian ethnicities. Even though most of them are of one ethnicity, they tend to be representative of all Asians. But they actually aren’t representing all Asians; they represent most central and western Asians like Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese. But because the media has been conditioned to accept them as the all Asian actor/actress, they have become the models for Asians in the United States.

Bettina Strauss/Netflix
It is a means of satisfying the masses and meeting the bare minimum in order to keep everyone happy. By throwing in a couple of minority actors/actresses here and there, they can say that they are giving minorities representation, but this representation is not accurate. It is known that America is a giant melting pot of ethnicities, and the growing population of minorities will one day be greater than that of the current white dominant population. What this is really doing is conditioning us to accept that there are not going to be many minorities as the main characters and that only certain people are allowed to represent an entire continent. It does not give the whole ethnic group a chance, but rather focuses on a select few who have already made it big. And hey, that’s fine by me, I love John Cho as an actor, but he does not represent darker skinned or low income Asians, he represents the Eurocentric representation of Asians: light skinned and rich. 

The industry really has adapted and grown if we compare it to its past, but there is still a long way to go before anyone is truly getting the accurate representation that is not clouded by white domination and Eurocentric standards.

 

Jade Zuniga

UC Riverside '24

I am a fourth-year Psychology major with an Organizational Behavior minor and Media and Cultural Studies minor, looking to improve my writing skills. I love listening to music, watching movies, eating and trying different foods, and playing with my cats.
20 year old creative writing major with a love for skincare, representation, and art. When not laying down and watching cartoons, I can be found working on my novel or browsing through baby name forums.