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ARTWORK: Xuming Du
Minari: Asian Representation in the Age of Anti-Asian Racism By Samantha Wong I look on in despair as headlines of antiAsian hate crimes come out of the US. Of the eight people shot in Atlanta on March 16, six of them were Asian women. And like all things, people deemed it a controversial matter – he didn’t shoot them because of their ethnicity, it was a sex addiction! While attacks against Asian-Americans have increased over 150 percent in the past year, the truth is, anti-Asian racism has long plagued the West and continues to do so in horrifying and violent ways. And even if Asians aren’t being actively abused, casual racism still pervades their everyday experiences. Just the other day I saw neo-Nazi material plastered to ANU signs, reading: ‘Australia for the White Man.’ Even here in the Canberra bubble there are still some people stuck in the dark ages. In this overwhelming climate, it’s easy to feel at a loss, angry, downtrodden. People are dying of COVID-19 because of some people’s selfishbehaviour, and yet those same selfish people look to blame an entire continent’s worth of people and local diaspora for their problems. It astounds me that in this globalised world where information is
a Google Search away, people are still so ignorant and hateful. That’s why I was so moved and thrilled watching the movie Minari, the story of a Korean family who moves to an Arkansas farm in pursuit of the ‘American Dream’. The movie is written and directed by Korean-American director Lee Isaac Chung and features an all-star cast of both Korean and Korean-American actors. Aside from the amazing cinematography, brilliant score and incredible acting, the film intimately portrays the dynamics of a young family struggling to make ends meet against a harsh rural landscape. It depicts the sweet friendship between a young boy and his halmeoni (grandma); and the tenuous love between a husband and wife who both want the best for their family but just can’t agree on the right way to go about it. Asian representation in Hollywood films has always been so important to me. I think growing up, I’d project myself onto characters in movies, either because I felt understood by them or because I aspired to be like them.
