Tori Tsui on being EurAsian and lack of representation
Viv Yau talks to Tori Tsui (she/her/they) about her life as a EurAsian woman and work as a mental health advocate.
Tell us why East and South East Asian representation is so important to you?
Growing up, everywhere I went, in media or even books and television, I never saw anyone that looked like me. Even when you think about East and South East Asian representation of people who aren't EurAsian, it's so poor and often we're so heavily tokenised in a way that's incredibly toxic and dangerous in many ways. But then you realise that even behind the scenes, not even within visual representation, people from these communities are not represented in a lot of places of power either. How can we possibly be advocating for inclusion of these communities if we don't have those people in those positions to make sure that we are part of the social thread of society?
One of the things that I always wanted to do growing up is I wanted to be an actress but I realised I always idolised actors and actresses who were white because I knew nothing else.
“When you constantly get compared to Lucy Liu, you know there's a problem because I look nothing like her at all, but people pigeonhole us and think we all look the same, which is just so problematic. Then people try and start comparing you to random Japanese models or whatever, because they literally have no clue what other Asian people look like because it's such poor representation.”
An example of something that made me realise that there was no space for me in any of these realms - I was the biggest Star Wars fan growing up and Star Wars did an open casting call where they were trying to find a lead for the latest film, the series that was produced by Disney.
I wanted to audition so badly and my ex-boyfriend was just like ‘Tori, I mean, you can go for it, but chances are they're not going to take someone that looks like you. You don't see people that look like you in these films.’ And he was right. The lead role went to Daisy Ridley, who was also very awesome, but she played a white jedi character whose family were all white. So there was no way in hell they were going to cast an Asian person to play that role - it just looks so weird and incongruous. I just see that the representation of Black and Brown people in cinema is just so much better than it is for people who look like me.
If you're a woman in cinema of mixed race, you are usually sexualised and tokenised - you're like a Bond girl, basically. And I'm never going to be a Bond girl because I don't like that. So where are the roles for the slightly androgynous, awkward EurAsian women that don't fit into any particular niche? Hit me up, because I'd love to be cast.
And that's also why Crazy Rich Asians - the representation in that including the people who directed it and the people who were a part of it - this is what we need more of. Why is it such a huge problem that, when the director director of Parasite, Bong Joon Ho, gave his acceptance speech, he did it in Korean? The homogenisation and the whitewashing of Hollywood in itself I just have so many problems with. It is getting better visual representation in terms of Black and Brown communities, but I want to see more Asian people, people who are not just tokenised, like Mr. Chang or someone who's playing the nerd in the film or, Asian men being treated like they are asexual. No. We need proper roles.
How has this racial aggravation been exacerbated by the current pandemic?
When I think about inclusion and representation, I'm also thinking about what's happening with COVID at the moment and how there are so many hate crimes that have spiked because of COVID-19 and what that's done for East and South East Asian communities - and it's not acceptable at all. But we also have to realise that COVID it isn't the only reason that these things are coming about - it's just a catalyst. There's this underlying hate towards these communities that has existed for so long, it's just that COVID is what's pushed over the edge to make it more visible. We have to tackle things like inclusion and representation and making sure that this world is hate-free for all.
In society, there almost seems to be a pecking order and a spectrum of people who are easier to pick on. While, of course, there are disproportionate racial aggravations and racial prejudices against our Black communities and a lot of our Brown communities as well, we have to remember that a lot of East and South East Asian communities are targeted on the basis of them being docile or within the culture of them not talking about this kind of trauma and this kind of hatred, that it almost makes it easier for them to be picked on because it's not something that people care about. There are so many micro aggressions and so many incredibly racist things said about East and South East Asian people, which doesn't even get recognised at all.
Even on social media we've seen online hate speech increase against our communities and Facebook and Instagram guidelines don't recognise this. They recognise racism against Black and Brown communities, antisemitic statements, homophobic statements, trans statements but when it comes to slurs like the C word, etc., it's just not even in their guidelines.
Exactly. Also, I really reiterate this quite a lot but we are people of colour without colours and it feels like there's so much erasure because of it. I've had to call people out multiple times who have assumed that East and South East Asian people are not people of colour. I've experienced so much racism because of my ethnicity, yet there are people, including people of colour, who perpetuate this idea that people from our communities do not experience racism because of the fact they have a lighter skin tone. In many respects that seems like a gateway for people to pick on us because it's like, "well, you're not really Black or Brown, so it's not a big deal if we pick on you." Additionally, my proximity to whiteness has also been a reason for people to think that they can be racist towards me, because they say "well you're only half Asian so it doesn't matter."
It's been quite interesting seeing different people - different Asian communities - almost trying to reclaim the word ‘yellow’. But at the moment, it's a slur and it's not empowering.
Exactly. It's like Yellow Peril for Black Lives Matter /Black Power. Yellow Peril in itself is extremely problematic because it was a Western construct to demonise people from the Far East as being manipulative, sly and evil and that came over to the West and changed politics. There's also so much of it that's linked to like communist xenophobia as well, which is still super persistent. We see it in the news - look at what's happening with Tiktok and WeChat - the demonisation of China has just been horrendous.
Talking about the media - how do you feel seeing the disproportionate representation in the media when it comes to Coronavirus related articles?
It's as clear as day to someone like me, and it's probably as clear as day to someone like you, and probably to all of our communities in many respects; but to anybody else, it just seems normal. Everybody else would probably be like, "oh, yes, Asians are on the front page again because it's COVID". But the fact that it's so normalised, that's really scary and terrifying that people will see that as normal.
I have heard people as well refer to coronavirus as the Chinese virus, which is stuff that Trump was saying.
“It's dangerous because it's subconsciously, and consciously in many respects, reinforces the stereotypes of people being like a virus in themselves. And what do you want to do with viruses? You want to eradicate them. You want to make them feel small or you want to do anything you can to get rid of them. There's definitely the narrative that's going throughout society and you can see it in the rise in hate crimes so it's incredibly dangerous”.
There's also so many people within our communities who don't see it as an issue because they have almost not made that link yet, that's that's what's perpetuating the hate crimes. We still must convince our people that this is happening and this isn't an issue and it's dangerous. A lot of it comes from assimilation and survival and a lot of it comes from some of the stuff that's talked about in the model minority myth as well, which is that if you just keep your head down and you just work hard, then you'll succeed. It's also used as a way of pitting Asians against other marginalised communities so it's sadly not a surprise. I want everyone to realise these constructs were designed to harm us, not to empower us. What we really need to do is be there for one another. There's so much racism within our own communities, especially anti-Blackness. We have to realise that we're all in the same boat, that we're just trying to dismantle such toxic systems that exist.
A lot of your work focuses on mental health advocacy and you talk very openly about having borderline personality disorder (BPD) and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). How has your identity as a EurAsian played a part in your mental health?
I'd say that PMDD is genetically predisposed, but BPD is something that has arisen, I think, from my upbringing and from my colourful life history. A lot of it, unfortunately, is due to the turbulence of just never really feeling like I fit in, never really feeling like I was Chinese enough, never really feeling like I was British enough. Also the push and pull of different cultures and constantly feeling like I had to move to the U.K. in order to get the recognition for my mental health that I deserved, because in Hong Kong it's so stigmatised.
“It's sad to say that that part of my heritage and that part of my culture, it just isn't there yet for understanding in terms of mental health conditions”.
People talk about dysphoria, and the dissociation between themselves and their identity, and I've kind of been exploring that a lot where for the longest time I thought I was white and now having to sit down and actually really think about all the racial microaggressions I faced in my life and all the times I've tried to be more palatable to a white privilege society. I feel like I've woken the hell up and I'm going through this really cathartic, painful process of realising all this stuff. And it's not easy. When you go through this, it's really painful to recount everything from your childhood as well. It's very intertwined in many ways.
Tori Tsui (she/her/they) is a EurAsian women who utilises her platform on Instagram to talk about intersectional climate activism and mental health. She has previously worked with Stella McCartney to model as a climate activist for their FW19 campaign, and also attended a roundtable with them at Paris Fashion Week - the likes of Amber Valletta and Jonathan Safran Foer were also present. Subsequently, Stella sponsored her to sail across the Atlantic Ocean with an initiative called Sail To The COP. This then led to Unite For Climate Action – a project Tori is working on with LAC youth climate experts to share their stories and experiences with German government officials in late 2020. Recently, Tori launched a podcast called Bad Activist, in which she co-hosts with her two friends, navigating the pressures of perfect activism in an imperfect world.