'Teen Wolf's' Arden Cho discusses being a victim of anti-Asian hate
Arden Cho, who played Kira Yukimura for three seasons on the MTV series "Teen Wolf," is speaking up about her experience as a victim of Asian hate.
The Korean American actress recently told E! Online that watching the videos of attacks against Asians reminds her of the pain she experienced for decades.
"I remember feeling like that was my childhood. That happened to me so many times and what's crazy is people don't believe it when you say nobody helps, nobody stops," she explained.
Cho took to Instagram in April to share the details of an incident in which she was verbally attacked while walking her dog.
"I shouldn't be scared but I am," she wrote. "All my trauma as a kid has been coming back as I'm watching my elders getting beaten and killed. I've been kicked in the face till I was unconscious and hospitalized, I was only a kid."
"I didn't realize how much that incident shaped my life. How much fear I've always lived with," she added.
The 35-year-old actress told E! that change "has to come from all the communities."
Citing films like Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari" and Chloe Zhao's "Nomadland" earning multiple Oscars, Cho said, "it's really exciting to see more Asian American writers and storytellers really putting great projects and hopefully being our voices, because for so long we had non-Asian people writing our stories."
"I think in the same way the Black community really thrived in entertainment was when Black creators just started saying, 'Let's make our own movies,'" Cho continued "I feel like 10 years ago we didn't have that, and I think this is a start."
She also reflected on harmful Asian stereotypes in the entertainment industry. "I think there's always been a challenge of how Asians have been represented in media," she said, before adding, "Asian women have always been sort of a prize or a trophy or a sexual desire."
She said when she decided to pursue a career in acting, she resolved to combat those stereotypes with the roles she sought out.
"One of the things I hoped for and really wanted was I didn't have to be the 'Sexy Girl No. 1' or 'Massage Girl No. 2,' -- or some sort of a sexual object -- because the whole reason of pursuing entertainment for me was I just wanted to be a part of, hopefully, representation," she said.
