Anna Akana Quotes

There's a burden of representation that comes into play when there aren't enough representatives of a certain group in popular culture.

It is shocking that the screen does not reflect the way the world is and the diversity in the world... What the world really looks like should be on screen, and it isn't.

More Asians need to be on television as a positive role model.

I want to be able to work on a project that will give people around the world the chance to represent their own people, their own culture, their own stories, rather than just Hollywood - really, you know, dominated Hollywood. And that's a dream of mine.

When I was a kid, it wasn't very often that I could go to the movies and see an entire movie carried on the shoulders of someone who looked like me.

I definitely intend to create my own work in the future so that we don't have to keep saying, We don't have work for black women.'

I didn't see a lot of women who looked like me on TV when I was growing up.

In a nation growing increasingly more diverse, it is imperative that the organizations tasked with keeping us informed reflect the same diversity.

Our culture today that we live in is getting so diverse, yet in Hollywood, there's not a lot of diversity.

When I was in school, you never saw anyone who looked like us that was on TV. And that was really weird for me because there's so many people of South Asian descent in America - in the world.

Point-blank, there is not enough diversity in media.

I think it's something much bigger than just pro wrestling and the industry I work in. It's across all media. You look at Hollywood movies: there's not the Muslim hero or the guy who looks like me and has a name like mine who is portrayed in a positive manner or in a leading role. So, growing up, I didn't have a role model that looks like me.

There's so much diversity on TV. It's actually reflecting American culture.

When I found out that I'm playing Nagini, I thought it was meaningful because it's an important character in the 'Harry Potter' series. 'Harry Potter' is a franchise film with many Caucasian actors, so I thought many Korean viewers would be happy.

There were no small brown kids as the centre of the children's fiction I grew up with.

It's far too rare an experience for Asian American girls to see themselves in media.

I don't understand why people don't understand that the world of TV should look like the world outside of TV.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.

I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.

I am tired of our characters being so incomplete. When do we ever save the day in a film? When does a Latino actor get to be the hero?

Not only do I not want to be stereotyped as this Asian girl who fights - gee, what a wonder - but also I have more to offer than that.

I'm not into the Oscar and Emmys as much as I used to be because I'm tired of looking at people who don't look like me.

Certainly, living in the U.S., as I have for over two decades, you see how Asians are portrayed in the media... I didn't see myself represented, you know, when I used to look at ads on TV.

Personally, it's a comfort and happiness to know that my work is taken seriously and is not marginalised and put in a box of ethnic immigrant writing in America.

Of course we've been fighting against stereotypes from Day One at East West. That's the reason we formed: to combat that, and to show we are capable of more than just fulfilling the stereotypes - waiter, laundryman, gardener, martial artist, villain.