Think fast. Name a Hollywood movie released in 2017 with an Asian main character. If you are having trouble thinking of any, it is because not one movie released last year had an Asian character as the lead.

It’s no secret that Hollywood has a problem with diversity. In the past, many movies had Asian characters portrayed by white actors. These characters more often than not were reduced to harmful racial stereotypes. I remember watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and not even comprehending that white actor Mickey Rooney’s character was supposed to be Japanese. His character Mr. Yunioshi was supposed to be “the funny side character.” That is, if you find exaggerated portrayals of racial stereotypes funny. Although Hollywood has improved in its portrayal of Asian characters, there is still a long way to go.

​Often when there is a main character in a movie that is supposed to be Asian, a white actor is casted to play them. For example, Scarlett Johansson played Motoko Kusanagi in the live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell (2016), Emma Stone played quarter-Polynesian, quarter-Chinese pilot Allison Ng in Aloha (2015), and Tilda Swinton played The Ancient One in Doctor Strange (2016), a character who was supposed to be a Tibetan monk. Hollywood filmmakers seem to think that casting famous white actors will increase ticket sales, but this just blocks Asian actors from roles that should have been portrayed by them. This also limits the amount of roles available to them even further.

​You may be thinking, “Why should I care? Why do you even care?” Well, maybe you do not care as much because 19 out of 20 of the speaking characters in film resemble you, while only one in 20 vaguely resemble me. I am Filipino so it’s even rarer for me to find Asian representation that resembles me as opposed to the usual East Asian characters. In fact, I can only name two characters in film or television that were explicitly depicted as Filipino-Americans as opposed to the East Asians you are probably used to seeing. They are Vincent Rodriguez from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Lars from Steven Universe. It should not be this difficult for me to find accurate representation. After over a hundred years of cinema, Asians shouldn’t still only be the sidekick to yet another white lead. We deserve better representation.