From Asian Excellence to Creative Excellence | Milken Institute Global Conference 2023

Historical Context & Representation Milestones

• 86 years after Louise Rayner (a non-Asian actress) won an Oscar for playing a Chinese farmer in A Good Earth (1937), Everything Everywhere All At Once became the first film with an all-Asian cast to feature an Asian actress playing an Asian woman in a leading role.
• Merle Oberin was the only other Asian actress nominated for an Oscar prior to this, though she did not publicly disclose her biracial heritage.
• Janet Yang highlights that Everything Everywhere All At Once is historically significant not only for casting but for its use of Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue.
• The panel notes that while Crazy Rich Asians was a landmark, it inadvertently created a "Crazy Rich" bias where financiers only greenlit similar wealthy diaspora stories, ignoring the broader spectrum of the Asian American experience.

Current Projects & Upcoming Releases

• Padma Lakshmi launched Taste the Nation Season 2 on Hulu, featuring episodes on Filipino communities in Daly City and Cambodian Americans in Lowell, Massachusetts.
• Jameel Jan Kochai, an Afghan American writer, is recommended for his short story collection exploring the psychological impact of an Afghan American teenager playing video games involving his own cultural group.
• Daniel Dae Kim is producing a live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender with an all-Asian cast and is set to star as the lead in a bilingual Amazon spy series shot in Korea this September.
• Eric Nam is releasing a new album and touring this year, while his acting debut in the film Transplant is in production.
• Eric Nam recommends two documentary films: Bad Axe, featuring a mixed-race family running a restaurant during the pandemic, and Strangers at the Gate, about a veteran converting to Islam after encountering kindness in an Afghan community.

Financial Barriers & Capital Access

• Janet Yang emphasizes that content creators often work in isolation without financial backing, noting that success often requires "plowing through" reliance on instinct and passion rather than evidence of returns.
• Padma Lakshmi revealed that it took six to seven years and rejections from at least six major networks (including a 600-word rejection email from an executive) to get Taste the Nation made.
• The panel discusses a disparity in the Fortune 500: Asian Americans are overrepresented in entry-level positions but suffer the highest attrition rates as they climb the corporate ladder, resulting in significant underrepresentation in C-suite roles (CEOs/CFOs).
• Netflix's recent $2.25 billion investment in Korean content serves as a data-driven example proving previous industry myths (e.g., "Asian faces don't sell," "black movies don't travel overseas") incorrect.
• The Asian American community, despite being the most affluent demographic in the U.S., has historically underutilized its spending power to support its own creative projects.

Organizational Advocacy & Infrastructure

• Gold House, founded by Bing Chen and led by Janet Yang, was established to bridge the Silicon Valley tech community and Hollywood entertainment sector to fund and promote Asian American visibility.
• The Asian American Foundation (TAF) and CAPE (Creative Alliance for Pathways and Equity) are highlighted as grassroots organizations working to change narratives and support artists from the ground up.
• TAF conducted a 2022 study of 5,000 Americans which found that 43% could not name a single prominent Asian American, with only 21-22% naming Bruce Lee and less than 4% identifying Kamala Harris as a prominent figure.
• The panel argues that the "model minority" myth is perpetuated by a lack of diverse representation, as people tend to equate the one visible stereotype with the entire demographic.

Challenges in the Creative Industry

• Industry executives still frequently evaluate Asian-led projects through a lens of "unproven data," requiring creators to prove market viability despite historical evidence that diversity sells.
• Eric Nam notes that the music industry lags behind film and TV in Asian American representation, partly because music is a passive medium compared to visual storytelling which allows for stronger identification.
• The "burden of representation" places pressure on Asian actors to portray the entire spectrum of humanity, from heroes to villains, rather than being confined to specific archetypes.
• The panelists advocate for creators to own 50% of projects or bring their own financing to bypass executive gatekeeping and retain creative control.

Future Outlook & Technology

• Generative AI (including deepfakes and large language models) is identified as a disruptive force that will drastically change film, music, and television production, potentially raising significant copyright and regulation issues.
• The panel expresses hope that the current surge in Asian American content marks a permanent movement rather than a temporary "moment," urging the audience to support organizations and projects that tell the full, diverse story of the Asian diaspora.
• Daniel Dae Kim calls for the creation of Asian-run studios, TV channels, and music companies to build infrastructure similar to Tyler Perry's or Mac Studios in the African American community.
• The group stresses that the goal of these stories is not just identity politics, but fostering universal human understanding by revealing shared struggles, such as family separation or economic hardship, across all ethnicities.