By Sophia Whittemore
AsAmNews Intern
When I stumbled upon Katie Malia’s web series, “Almost Asian“, I watched her comedic skits about what I fondly call “mini identity crisis moments.” Namely, these multiracial hapa experiences include:
- Being given a fork at an Asian restaurant
- Being mistaken for being the wife of your blood relative because you don’t look like them
- “Oh, you’re not (blank) enough”.
- Trying to change your physical appearance for the sake of “code switching”.
- Not feeling worthy of speaking for either side because you’re only half
I subscribed immediately and liked as many videos as I could.
It isn’t easy growing up “between worlds”, and Katie Malia puts a great, comedic spin on it with the web series “Almost Asian” that played at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.
From PRI, Katie Malia puts her identity this way:
In the past, “I just wanted to blend in. That’s all I wanted to do,” she says. But Malia is embracing her mixed identity in a fuller way now. “I can’t speak for the full Asian community. I can’t speak for the full white community,” she says, but “I’m on my own path and when I hear from people like you who are half-Japanese say, ‘Oh I can relate to this,’ I’m like, ok this is where I’m supposed to be.”
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