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Tribune News Service

Emily Liu’s life is a series of balancing acts.
She speaks Chinese with her father and Spanish with her mother. Visiting her parents’ homelands takes her to Harbin in northern China and a small town in the Mexican state of Zacatecas.
Perhaps most of all, it’s how she’s perceived by others, as if she were a living Rorschach test – Asian to some and Latina to others.
“Some friends say they see Asian features. I don’t see any,” the soft-spoken teenager said. “I also don’t see any Latina. I don’t see any of it.”

Asians and Latinos are the two fastest-growing ethnic groups in the country, making up about a quarter of the US population, according to 2019 Census data.
But even in places like the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 80 per cent of residents are either Asian or Latino, few people are both. To belong to both groups simultaneously can be a study in loneliness and confusion.
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California is home to more Asian Latinos than any other state in the US – at least 250,000, most of whom live in Los Angeles County. But that’s still a tiny slice of the nearly 40 million people who live in the Golden State, 15 per cent of whom are Asian and 39 per cent Latino.
As the Asian and Latino populations continue to grow, fuelled by both immigration and birth rates, mixed offspring will become increasingly common.
People like Liu may offer a glimpse of California and the nation’s future, with all its complexities of language, culture and identity.
I feel like, ‘Am I Asian enough to be with my group of friends?’
Isaac Guo Meyer, whose father is Mexican and his mother Chinese
Being Asian Latino can spark pride, especially for young people who spend much of their lives online. There are profiles, listicles and TikTok videos. Self-described “Lasians” can eat dim sum in the morning and enchiladas that night.
In a TikTok video with more than 1 million views, Nicole Ngo, a Los Angeles native, asks what you get when you mix a Chinese father with a Mexican mother: “two kids with an identity crisis”. It’s a joke, 24-year-old Ngo said, that’s rooted in truth.
Many young Asian Latinos are grappling with who they are, struggling with the stereotypes, judgments and expectations of the world, dealing with confusion that even their parents – one solely Asian, the other solely Latino – can be hard pressed to comprehend.
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They’re also witnesses to a cultural identity shaped by each side, sometimes resulting in a unique blend.
Ngo’s Mexican mother told her kids to kiss and hug their Chinese grandmother, which is not customary in Asian culture.
“Because my mum was doing that, my cousins were told to do the same thing. As time went on, the next 10 years, now that’s how we greet each other,” Ngo said. “We go down the line and hug every single aunt and uncle, hug every single cousin, just like we do with our Mexican side. It somehow bled into my Chinese culture, because of my mum’s impact.”

Liu’s parents met nearly two decades ago while attending English as a Second Language classes in Alhambra – a US city that is 52 per cent Asian and 35 per cent Latino, according to census data.
In their engagement photos, Beatriz Ortega and Ivan Liu wore Chinese-style jackets, hers red, his blue. Five kids later, sometimes their communication is still muddled. Liu doesn’t speak any Spanish and Ortega knows only a little Chinese. Their English is still a work in progress.
“I think that in love, language is not an issue,” Liu said. (And, as Ortega jokes, it helps prevent arguments.)
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For other couples, the challenge was not a language barrier but a cultural one.
Grace Lee-Navarrete, who is Chinese-American and grew up in Monterey Park, met her now-husband, Agustin, who is Mexican, through a mutual friend.
Although her parents wanted her to date someone Chinese, Lee-Navarrete never did. When it came time to tell her family about her serious relationship with Agustin, she said, “everything blew up”.
I want them to understand their heritage and where they come from
Grace Lee-Navarrete, Chinese-American whose husband is Mexican
Her father flew to China to speak with his pastor, who “talked some sense” into him, according to Lee-Navarrete. Her father walked her down the aisle, and she and Agustin have been married for more than 20 years.
Lee-Navarrete, 51, says that for her three kids, “nothing is forbidden. Nothing is hidden”. They “don’t have to sneak around”.
Despite not marrying someone Chinese, Lee-Navarrete made it a point to incorporate her culture into her children’s lives. Her maternal grandfather chose her daughters’ middle names: Lauren’s is Yu-lan, meaning “jade flower”, while Alyssa’s is Yu-tzeng, meaning “precious jade”.
“I want them to understand their heritage and where they come from,” Lee-Navarrete said.
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Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra is 70 per cent Asian and 22 per cent Latino. But students who are both are relatively rare. At our request, a group of four – including Liu – gathered in the cafeteria last autumn to talk about navigating their identity.
Emiko Luna Hernandez’s mother is Japanese-Mexican and her father Mexican; Isaac Guo Meyer’s father is Mexican and his mother Chinese; Matthew Sy’s mother is Chinese and his father Salvadoran.
The two girls and two boys, seated in a semicircle, were quiet at first but quickly found common ground. They described the Asian side of their families as more “formal”, whereas on the Latino side their relatives were more easy-going.
Hopefully, other people realise that there’s others like them. I didn’t realise that for a long time
Cristina Ruiz, who is Mexican and Chinese
They pushed back on stereotypes of Asian parents being stricter about school. Liu said her Mexican mum is more disciplined when it comes to academics.
“When I usually tell people that my mum cares about my grades, they say, ‘I thought your dad would’,” Liu, now 18, who recently graduated, said later. They shared the food fusions in their households, such as eating tamales and Mexican fried rice while making dumplings at the same table.
That, however, is where the similarities ended.
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While Liu speaks Mandarin and Spanish, her classmates tended to have a firm grasp on only one of their parents’ languages. And how they’re perceived by others varies.
“I think I kind of look Filipino to some people,” said 10th-grader Luna Hernandez. Just the day before, Sy said, someone in class had also asked him if he was Filipino.
“If I’m hanging out with my entire group of Asian friends, in that moment I feel like an Asian,” said 18-year-old Isaac Guo Meyer. “And sometimes I might just see my reflection and then I see, of everyone in the group, I just look different from other people.
“My friends don’t treat me any differently because of it,” Guo Meyer added, “but it makes me view myself differently, where I feel like, ‘Am I Asian enough to be with my group of friends?’”
Cristina Ruiz, 21, captured the experience of being Asian Latino in a series of profiles she wrote last year for UnidosUS, a Washington-based advocacy and civil rights group where she worked as a summer education policy intern.
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Ruiz, who grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, is Mexican and Chinese. Her grandpa, who is Mexican, met her grandma, who is Chinese, while the two worked in the Sears building in Boyle Heights.
Her identity is something she’s discussed often with her twin sister, “the only one who really understands what it’s like to grow up in an Asian community, right next to a Mexican one, and being both but not really being either”.
For one profile, Ruiz connected with her friend Arie Lea Kuo, who is Taiwanese and Mexican. “When Arie Lea was younger, kids in the Asian community where she grew up in Monterey Park only seemed to believe the part of her identity that was obvious,” Ruiz wrote.
“I definitely look more Latino than Asian,” Kuo told Ruiz, noting that even with her last name, kids often said, “No way you’re Asian.” During their conversation, Ruiz and Kuo commiserated about their hesitation to join cultural clubs in high school, “because we wondered, ‘Are we going to appropriate our own culture?’”
“I think just talking about these issues with other people that I knew for a while just really showed me how common my experiences were,” Ruiz said. “Hopefully, other people realise that there’s others like them. I didn’t realise that for a long time.”

The signs outside the San Gabriel Valley church touted services in English, Cantonese and Mandarin. Before Beatriz Ortega sent her children off to their youth groups, she instructed her youngest son, “Pórtate bien”. Behave.
When Ortega married Liu, she was Catholic, and he was an evangelical Christian. Now, Ortega has been attending Liu’s evangelical church for more than a decade. She sits in the English service, the only Latina in the room, while her husband goes to the Mandarin service.
After the service, Ortega and daughter Emily walked arm in arm at Fiesta Alhambra, an event celebrating Latino and Hispanic Heritage Month. When she’s out with her mum, Emily Liu said, people comment that she looks more Latina.
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Mother and daughter bought strawberries and kale and browsed the handmade Mexican blankets. When the vendors spoke in Spanish, Emily Liu had no difficulty understanding.
In the Liu household, “Happy Birthday” is sung in Chinese, English and Spanish.
When she has kids, Emily Liu said, she plans to speak with them in Mandarin and Spanish – the languages bequeathed by her mother and father.


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For Asian Latinos, pride and a unique cultural identity but also loneliness and confusion

Four children with an Asian and a Latino parent, (from left) Mathew Sy, Emiko Hernandez, Emily Liu, at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra, California. Photo: TNS

Liu, 17, and her mother Beatriz Ortega, 40, at a farmers’ market in Alhambra, California. Photo: TNS

In places like the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 80 per cent of residents are either Asian or Latino, few people are both. Photo: Getty Images

Beatriz Ortega (front, centre left) and Ivan Liu (front, centre right) with their children at their home in California. Photo: TNS

The Karate Kid musical’s Mr Miyagi on Asian representation, how it’s ‘not a movie being staged’, and stepping into Pat Morita’s shoes

Canadian actor and director Jovanni Sy takes on the role of Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid musical, now playing in St Louis, Missouri. He tells the Post how the stage production differs from the film.

Sy with William Zabka, star of The Karate Kid.

The Karate Kid musical made its debut this month in St Louis, in the US state of Missouri.

Sy has a strong affinity to The Karate Kid for its seminal Asian representation in a Hollywood movie. Photo: Colin Lovett

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“Coolieism, aka: Sly Son Goku” (2021), by Oscar yi Hou, based on a character from the popular manga series Dragon Ball, mixes Asian and American iconography. Photo: Oscar yi Hou

Hou in front of his painting “The siblings in my studio, aka: Gemini, Sagittarian” (2021). Photo: Oscar yi Hou 

“Birds of a feather flock together, aka: A New Family Portrait” (2020), by Oscar yi Hou. Photo: Oscar yi Hou

“Cowboy Kato Coolie, aka Bruce’s B***h” (2021), by Oscar yi Hou. Photo: Oscar yi Hou

“Untitled (Entry No. 22)” (2020), by Oscar yi Hou, part of his “Poem-pictures” series. Photo: Oscar yi Hou

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Four of the creators of digital comic series House of Slay. The five-member team has collaborated with a political committee to make a clothing line to encourage voter turnout within the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community in the US. Photo: Getty Images

House of Slay founders Phillip Lim, Laura Kim, Ezra William, Prabal Gurung and Tina Leung.

House of Slay and AAPI Victory Fund merchandise.

The merchandise was designed to inspire the AAPI community.

The apparel line has political slogans on the front and back in multiple languages.

Influencer Tina Leung as a comic book character for House of Slay.

House of Slay founders say this project was an opportunity to rewrite the narrative of the country they call home.

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There are dangers to dating as an Asian-American woman that can have deadly consequences. Illustration: Brian Wang/SCMP

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A still from Disney and Pixar’s Turning Red. Photo: Pixar

A poster for Madame Butterfly.

Constance Wu attends the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 11th Annual Governors Awards in 2019 in Hollywood. She has previously opened up about the anger she received from Asian men for dating a white man in 2018. Photo: WireImage

Mourners pay respect to the Asian community after a man in Atlanta attacked three spas killing eight people, six of whom were Asian. Photo: Getty Images

How Michelle Yeoh and Sandra Oh took Asian-American mums mainstream in Everything Everywhere All at Once and Turning Red

Michelle Yeoh in a still from Everything Everywhere All at Once. Photo: A24

Sandra Oh, who plays a Chinese-American mum in Pixar’s Turning Red, arrives at the film’s world premiere at El Capitan theatre in Hollywood, California. Photo: TNS

A screen grab from Turning Red by Disney/Pixar, starring Sandra Oh as Chinese-American mum Ming (left). Photo: Pixar

Sandra Oh (left) and Fivel Stewart in a still from Umma. Photo: TNS

From left: Steven Yeun, Alan Kim, Youn Yuh-jung, Yeri Han and Noel Cho in a still from Minari, inspired by writer-director Lee Isaac Chung’s own life. Photo: Josh Ethan Johnson/A24

Lifestyle

Family & Relationships


Asians and Latinos are the two fastest-growing ethnic groups in the US, but few people belong to both – and those that do sometimes grapple with their identity
In some cases the marriage of two cultures creates a unique blend – reflected in family dynamics and fusion food – but it also affects how others perceive them



It’s still quite rare to see Asian Latinos, even in California. Belonging to both ethnic groups creates a unique cultural identity that can be a source of pride, but also confusion and loneliness.


Chinese culture

Racism and other prejudice

United States

Asian diaspora