A New Wave of Asian American Creatives On the Necessity of Exploring Identity

[upbeat music]

Somebody did message me on social media

and said that I’m hosting the Korean American Super Bowl

but I’m the Chinese guy here, so.

[audience laughing]

I’d love to start

by talking about your respective crafts, Sandra.

How are you thinking about the roles you take

on now and how has your thinking about this evolved?

Anybody here an actor?

Yay. Okay, so I gotta tell you, when you start out

you don’t really have much choice.

That you, there are stepping stones,

Do you know what I mean?

I have played, you know, prostitutes that have no dialogue

and I have been cut out of the movie.

I just took what was available to me and tried

to make it as meaningful and as memorable as possible.

Cause it’s just like if the camera just pans over my face

I want someone to think what is going on

with that character who has no lines?

You know, my characters in the past have not

necessarily had to, had their, had their history

their family, their race, their culture explored

and now that’s all I’m interested in doing.

I’m gonna switch it up and ask you

about a little project, Fuku,

your foray into the world of spicy chicken sandwiches

and you printed the words dericious

all over its sandwich wrappers.

Internally at the office, they would always say

this is Dave’s art house project.

Momo Fuku clearly is a reference to many things

but also the swear word Fuku was even a more

direct reference to the swear word, F-U-K-U.

And I knew, I knew before we even did it

when we put on the packaging

this aluminum foil packaging

that we would put the chicken sandwiches in

that no one would say anything.

[audience laughing]

No one would comment that it was Derishous.

[audience laughing]

Why do you think?

Hmm

Seriously, why do you think they talk about that

Legitimately, I feel like it doesn’t matter

to the audience because it’s already laughable.

We’re already the punchline to a joke.

And I remember this,

I won’t say where cause it could get me in trouble.

A lot of corporate sponsors

and a bunch of corporate executives

that are all very well known were giggling

like little school children saying Derishious to each other.

And I was like, this is my art house project.

And, and Min, I mean you were a history major,

corporate lawyer, and then you quit to be a novelist.

And I am now an English professor at Amherst College.

[audience laughing]

[audience clapping]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

You shouldn’t clap.

You should feel sorry for these children.

The thing that I really care

about is what is it that I really want to say?

And then what I really think about is what do I really feel

and what do I want my reader to feel?

And I tell my students at Amherst College,

I know I can’t teach you all these other things

these professors can teach you,

but I can teach you how to tell the truth.

And if I could teach you how to tell the truth,

then I can make you into an original person.

And what my job is to teach you, to remember,

to remember who you are.

And if you could remember who you are and what you value

and what you love, then I can make you a truth teller.

Cause the world needs more truth tellers.

Isaac, what’s in, incredible to me about ‘Minari’

is that you were really at the end of your line

in, in filming.

I’m usually at the end of my line

That you, you were about to hang it up I think.

‘Minari’ obviously has became this critical success

and just won award after award.

And so what are you gonna do now with that?

It’s an opportunity bigger

than I could have imagined for myself.

Like, I’ve been making independent films up until ‘Minari’

and Min said a couple of things that people have said

to her that she wanted to impart to me.

Someone told you with your next novel,

now that you made your first novel success

with your next one, don’t make it about Asians.

And I found what Min said was very liberating,

that it’s, it’s not a box, you know,

it’s, it’s in, in some ways I feel liberated

to try to make films that are just simply about me

or about the people I love and see where I go with it.

I remember watching with my wife who’s here, and we saw it

I think with her mother-in-law, my mother-in-law.

But I wasn’t expecting to be moved as much

because I saw my life, even though it was in Arkansas

even though my family weren’t farmers

it was just the littlest things, like the

Grandma with the suitcase, bringing all these things,

the videos.

I just never thought I’d see that on film

and it, it like brought me to tears.

You’re all masters of your craft, but I also feel

like you’re really deep students of your respective crafts.

That that that point

about student I think is extremely important.

And I don’t think I’ve ever, I’ve, I’ve ever lost that.

And there’s been certain points in my career

in my life that I went back to class probably

right after, you know, the first six episodes

of Grey’s Anatomy.

I was like, I’m not gonna survive this

because it’s just a different type of grind

and I needed to try and find a continual creative source.

This stuff doesn’t come without like you wishing on it

or thinking that inspiration’s gonna come because yeah,

it might every so often,

but you need to practice that muscle

to find your your creative space.

And I think, I think the place of creativity

and mastery comes from understanding that space.

I was, I’m by far the worst student here,

you know I have a, a complicated relationship

with the word mastery

because I was brought up to never be told I was good enough

at anything.

That’s a neurosis that I’m still trying to unwind.

But simultaneously I can have the biggest ego

in the room too, right?

That I’m constantly fighting,

and I don’t know how little bit like you said,

it’s hard for me to articulate

because it’s a hot mess of a process.

But I’m usually trying to find an idea

and perfect that idea in a way that I own.

It’s my process.

I also have, for the record, like hearing mastery

like that, that really makes me feel so uncomfortable

somehow.

Like I have this inherent problem with being

a perfectionist.

So, I’m very goal oriented.

You know, I, I’ve, I’ve gotta know what that end goal is.

So that’s my constant battle

where I have to put into place a process

of just doing the work and then eventually

finding that, oh, okay, now I am pleased

with what I have.

The mastery is how you deal with the self-doubt, right?

It’s like how you start gaining more skills

about doing the doubt and it’s hopefully

we can start having a little bit more mastery

on, of our fear.

The funny thing is, my, my girl, she’s nine years old

she might be watching now, but I asked her,

Do you ever want to be a filmmaker?

And she said, no, dad.

Cause then I’ll be always wondering, is it any good?

Is it any good?

[audience laughing]

Suddenly we’re seeing Asians become very, very visible.

How have you all experienced that shift?

No, I will, I will say, I mean it’s taken a long time.

It’s taken me a,

a really really long time to actually feel a shift.

And I feel like honestly

after ‘Crazy Rich Asians’,

did I feel a change in my career with the choices

I was able to make.

And then also from my own personal focuses.

I will say that when I first started cooking

it was a very different world.

Yeah.

And there was only one chef that was Asian American

and his name was Alex Lee and he was the chef at Danielle.

The reason I idolized him, he was the only one in New York.

And now if you look at kitchens

and the restaurants that are here today,

it’s, it’s night and day.

It’s not even something you can even

make a comparison where people would even believe you.

And it’s, it’s just the beginning.

I think it’s all changing not just in food,

but every facet of culture.

[audience applauding]