shout out to jeremy lin!

By now you should know that I don't follow sports, so this post has little to do with Jeremy Lin.

I do, however, follow multi-cultural issues. Last night I attended a round-table panel at Fordham entitled "RepresentAsian: The Changing Face of Theatre". It was moderated by playwright David Henry Hwang and featured a slew of recognizable names such as Oskar Eustis, Douglas Carter Beane, Tara Rubin, and Bartlett Sher. 

The conversation lasted about three hours, and surprisingly, it never got boring. I wanted so badly to raise my hand and ask a question (or text/tweet a question- they embrace technology in 2012!), but I was finding it difficult to formulate my comments into reasonable prompts. 

What I really wanted to bring up was my own sense of mis-representation in the theatre. Statistically, I fit into the 2% of Latinos seen on stage. However, because of the fairness of my skin, it would be difficult to feel as if my "race" were something I were being discriminated for. Without getting too detailed, I've always felt this way- trapped between two worlds.

Incidentally (and completely unrelated-ly) I met Andréa Burns this weekend. I've always been a huge fan of hers for two reasons. Firstly, because we share the same name, except she is brave/smart enough to put an accent on her name to make sure people don't try to mis-pronounce it. I would do that now, but I do too much of my work on the computer, and always having to put in that accent character would be more frustrating than helpful.

The second reason why I love Andréa Burns is because of how easily she can slip in and out of her Latina-ness. I remember having once seen an ah-mah-zing video where she sang "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" (from Songs for a New World) and "No Me Diga" (from In The Heights) back to back to show the contrast between her accented voice and her very straight musical theatre tone. I looked for it online now and couldn't find it anywhere, so you'll have to remain content with watching her sing a song from Beauty and the Beast in that princess style of hers.

Anyway, given that long tangent, the point of my story is this: race and culture do not define a person. It's the talent that actually matters. On stage, on the basketball court, in the science lab.. it's a universal principle that matters. So NBA, don't overlook a talent like Jeremy Lin. Casting directors, don't ignore the Asian population. And world, don't ignore me.


(To apologize for this slightly-longer-than-usual post, I will include a picture of Jeremy Lin doing something that looks hard. So you can't say I tricked you with this title.)