‘Wasians’ are embracing the spotlight. But not everyone feels seen

By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — When Icelandic Chinese musician Laufey dropped her latest music video last month, starring a cast of mixed white and Asian celebrities, the internet went wild.

“Laufey collecting wasians like pokemon,” read one social media comment, using a portmanteau to describe people of mixed white and Asian descent. “WASIAN AVENGERS,” another comment cheered.

The term “Wasian” has been used since the early 2000s, but it has recently blown up on social media thanks to the emergence of several high-profile figures — many of whom starred in Laufey’s music video, including Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu, “Heated Rivalry” actor Hudson Williams and “The Summer I Turned Pretty” actress Lola Tung.

“Wasian” is just the latest among many attempts to shorthand biracial groups; elder millennials may be more familiar with reclaimed terms like mestizo in the Philippines and the Hawaiian hapa haole which are more​ broadly applied to any mix including Asian and Pacific Islander ancestries.

In Laufey’s video for the song “Madwoman,” the stars wear 1960s mod fashion, complete with go-go boots and colorful geometric prints, while enjoying dim sum and playing mahjong — a nod to both sides of the singer’s heritage.

She is among those who have publicly embraced the Wasian label — which has helped many people who self-identify as such to feel more seen, though not everyone feels the same way. Laufey said she “felt a general lack of representation for people who looked like me in music and media” when growing up.

“Madwoman” is “what younger Laufey would have loved to see,” she said; when Liu posted a photo from the shoot, the Olympian captioned it, “Shoutout Wasiaaaa,” to which the Laufey responded, “long live wasia long live alysa liu.”

Williams, too, has spoken about his mixed-race identity – saying in multiple interviews that his Korean mother had worried he would have trouble landing roles as a half-Asian. “I wanna represent my Wasians out there,” he said in an interview with audio app Quinn. “I’ve been declared … the princess or prince of Wasia.”

This heightened attention coincides with a growing fascination in the West around Asian entertainment and culture (think the Netflix smash hit “KPop Demon Hunters,” the recent Chinamaxxing trend, K-beauty products, and even Labubus).

And the increased visibility of Wasians has crossed from the screen into the real world, with large crowds gathering at “Wasian meetups” earlier this May in San Francisco and New York City. Music blared as attendees held lookalike contests for Wasian stars; some brought giant cutout posters of famous biracial celebrity faces, including pop princess Olivia Rodrigo and actor Henry Golding.

For some, it was a powerful and positive experience to see themselves represented and to connect with others.

“It felt very validating — I felt very visible for the first time in my life,” said Annabelle Oaklie, a stand-up and improv comedian who attended the New York meetup. Born in Texas to a white father and Korean mother, she says there were only a few other Wasians at school, and she and her siblings didn’t look like their cousins from either side of the family.

Standing in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow, surrounded by more than 3,000 people was “almost like a family reunion of sorts,” she said, adding that she could “look across and feel like you vaguely know everyone around you.”

But the meetups have also triggered a heated debate about race and identity that has reached a fever pitch online in recent weeks. The controversy has raised questions about who is represented, and why — as well as what it means to be multiracial in America.

‘Where’s the support’ for others?

Some critics have pointed out that the meetups — like the representation of mixed celebrities in pop culture — have felt disproportionate, not broadly representing all Wasians. Instead, they seem to predominantly highlight a mix of white and East Asian descent, such as those with Chinese, Korean and Japanese heritage.

“As a wasian who is half SOUTH Asian I also have no idea where I fit in this,” one user wrote on TikTok. Another person posted: “That’s something that frustrates me as a South Asian Wasian, as someone whose mom is Indian and whose dad is white, I’ve always had to clarify, ‘Yeah, I’m Wasian but you know my mom’s brown so I actually don’t fu**ing count!’”

Part of this imbalance stems from the demographic breakdown of those with Asian descent in the United States. Among the national mixed white and Asian population, there is a much higher proportion of people with East and Southeast Asian roots.

As of 2023, according to the Pew Research Center, around 38% of the Asian population in the US is of East Asian descent. Southeast Asians are the next-biggest group, largely made up of Vietnamese and Filipino Americans.

These numbers are the result of historical factors and immigration trends, said Curtiss Takada Rooks, assistant professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

For starters, the US occupied Japan and South Korea after World War II, and had military bases in the Philippines. Many American service members married women in these countries before returning home — causing an influx of tens of thousands of so-called “war brides” in the 1950s and 1960s, who then had biracial children, Takada Rooks said.

Around this time, Chinese and Japanese American third-generation immigrants were also growing up (these groups, along with Filipinos, were among the earliest Asians to arrive in the US in the 1800s). Many began moving away and marrying outside their own communities — which could have also led to more mixed-race births, Takada Rooks added.

Overall, there are 4.1 million mixed Asian people in the US, according to the 2020 Census, though it doesn’t offer a further breakdown on how many of those were mixed white and Asian.

Critics say that experiences shared by attendees at the Wasian meet-ups — not fully fitting into the communities around them, struggling to master their parents’ native languages — aren’t exclusive to mixed white and Asian people, but are felt by many multiracial people. So why, they ask, was the event not open to all mixed Asians?

“Black Asians and Hispanic Asians are never acknowledged in the mainstream the way that white mixed Asians are — and this meeting has highlighted just how out of touch the sentiment around mixed Asian identity is,” said singer-songwriter Mad Tsai, who is of Taiwanese and Chinese Peruvian descent, in a viral TikTok that has racked up more than 1 million views.

“We need to acknowledge the elephant in the room, that Wasian privilege does exist. It’s an extension of white privilege,” he added. “I would like to reiterate that Wasians are 100% part of the Asian community, and should be celebrated like the rest of us. But where’s the support for Blasians and Hispasians?”

Actor and writer Quentin Nguyen-duy attended the New York Wasian meet-up and identifies as Wasian, but he agreed emphatically that there’s an imbalance in representation. He pointed out that much of the appreciation of Wasians feels like fetishization, rooted in colorism and Eurocentric beauty standards – pervasive both in broader America, and even within the Asian American and multiracial communities.

“The proximity to whiteness is inarguably why Wasians have so much more visibility in pop culture than other mixed Asian groups,” said Nguyen-duy, who also creates social media content and comedy skits that address his mixed-Asian identity.

It’s not just about representation, some say this proximity to whiteness also translates to different lived experiences, in terms of discrimination, racism and opportunity.

Both Nguyen-duy and Oaklie said these criticisms are valid and important. But, they also argued, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t identify as Wasian, or that the label is inherently problematic, or that Wasian meetups shouldn’t happen at all, like many online have claimed.

“Sometimes your proximity to whiteness as a Wasian means that people are very careless with their words and sometimes are directly racist to you… even family members might be voting against your interest or might be xenophobic,” Oaklie said. But when talking to other Asians, they only seem to “see that whiteness in you,” she said.

“I think Wasians sometimes very specifically feel excluded from Asian communities or feel lumped into being white or white-passing, and it makes it challenging then to connect with Asians that have had the same experience,” she added.

For Nguyen-duy, “there’s no ethical dilemma in calling oneself Wasian.”

“I think that acknowledging one’s whiteness, which I guess some people might say is centering one’s whiteness, is also very important when it comes to discussing the nuance of racial politics,” he said. “To say that I’m not white and Asian would be to vindicate myself of white privilege, which I’m very well aware I have in abundance.”

Takada Rooks pushed back on some of the controversy around the meet-ups, saying he had no expectation that “this particular Wasian movement has an obligation to create a space for me as a Blasian.”

“If that space doesn’t feel comfortable for you, then as we have always done, we create our own space,” he added. He recalled a recent conference for mixed race studies where all the experts and scholars mingled together, before later gathering in smaller sub-groups where he was able to chat with fellow Blasians.

Having different spaces like that is “also OK,” he said.

Empowerment in a word

Without dismissing the pain of other minorities and multiracial groups, this moment of Wasian visibility — and the term itself — holds deep meaning and joy to many who identify as Wasian.

Growing up, Nguyen-duy knew he was different from his peers, but didn’t know how to best describe it. None of the other labels — Vietnamese? American? Vietnamese American? — felt entirely right.

“You’re like, I like Asian food, but I suck at chopsticks. I gotta take my shoes off in the house, but I still celebrate Thanksgiving,” he said. “Once you find out a name for it, you can kind of breathe a sigh of relief, because you’re like, oh sh*t, other people are feeling this.”

Oaklie didn’t love the label at first, but came around to it eventually — liking that “it mostly sounds like ‘Asian,’ but there is a little flair, a little hint to my whiteness, and it’s very succinct in how it describes my background.”

This kind of “self-naming can be incredibly powerful,” said Takada Rooks. For Wasians, it gives them the vocabulary to understand and discuss their identities and experiences in full — not in halves or parts.

This is why the Wasian meetup felt so “heartwarming,” Oaklie said, describing the atmosphere that day as similar to a concert where everybody in the crowd is just as excited to be there.

As the debate spreads online, the question becomes: Where do the mixed-race and Wasian communities go from here? Or, as Takada Rooks put it: “As Wasians are feeling this empowerment, who are they reaching back to pull up with them?”

Both Oaklie and Nguyen-duy said they hoped the current discourse can encourage broader representation for other types of Asians and minorities, including in entertainment and casting. Any progress in diverse representation opens the door for everybody, said Oaklie.

And, Takada Rooks said, many of these complex topics can’t be distilled into short-form social media videos — people in these communities need to meet and parse through the nuance of these issues together.

“I think that it’s too easy for us to allow ourselves to be fractured, because when we get fractured in that way, we become in service of the larger oppressive structure we find ourselves in,” he said.

“If we’re arguing with each other, then we’re not looking at the problem and working together to challenge and change that particular status quo.”

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