#but gnc characters are also stupidly rare in mainstream media so you know

[canonicallyanxious]

I am rlly bad at wording things, sorry in advance. When you see a representation that is Viet, do you feel represented or relate to it, even if it is not American-Viet? for example: Kieu My in Druck, she is Viet, but also German, and grew up mulitculturally. I hope I make sense, feel free to disregard if not.

hm. good question, anon! i guess the thing about it is there’s just not a lot of representation of viet people in mainstream western media at all. like in western media you either have viet characters who aren’t played by viet people - e.g Diane Nguyen in Bojack Horseman played by Alison Brie who is a white woman - or viet actors playing characters who aren’t viet - e.g Lara Jean in To All the Boys I’ve loved Before as a mixed-korean girl being played by Lana Condor; very, very rare in western media to get a viet character played by a viet actor that isn’t in the context of the vietnam war. so i guess generally it does depend on how the character is written and if the viet part of their history is actually incorporated well into their story but yeah, i would say i tend to feel a strong connection to viet characters when they do appear, and i’m sure part of that is because i’m not used to seeing people who look like me on screen but also i’m pretty much always going to relate more to a character of color [particularly if they’re asian just bc of my specific background] than a white character.

Wrt Kieu My specifically - for me as a member of the viet diaspora i admittedly find it a lot easier to relate to another member of the Viet diaspora than a character from vietnam bc i didn’t grow up in vietnam, i grew up in a predominantly white society as a child of vietnamese immigrants, so characters like Kieu My and i definitely don’t have all the same experiences but i can still see myself a lot in her story - for example her line where she talks about how part of the pressure she feels is to do right by her parents bc they sacrificed so much for her to have the freedom to pursue the opportunities she wants, or when she says she’s kind of insecure to speak viet in Vietnam bc her parents taught her “children’s” vietnamese [i’ve never been to vietnam but i have many relatives who have gently teased me for my American accent which makes me v self-conscious about it]. 

there are generally a lot of experiences and feelings i associate with having my background that I’ve found i have in common with many of my diaspora friends. for example my best friend and i often talk a lot about having shared experiences even though she’s indian-american and i’m viet-american. Same with my cousins too, most of them are vietnamese-french so we have a lot differences in our experiences but a lot of similarities too. i think there’s just something about growing up with a significant divide in the culture you grow up with at home and the culture you grow up with in school/outside the home, along with being physically separated from a culture that was very important to your own parents’ upbringing, along with being visibly from a family that isn’t “from here” in a predominantly white society that has a pretty significant effect on your life and experiences. So whenever i find a character who has similar experiences i do tend to find myself relating to them a lot! And honestly Kieu My is one of the very few viet characters i’ve encountered who i’ve been able to relate to on that front [i really liked the writing of Diane Nguyen’s character in that respect as well although huge caveat once again that character is played by a white woman], so i’m quite grateful for the care that’s been put into creating her character. I can tell they put a lot of effort into writing her and Fatou as a Gambian-German girl and that feels really special to me because it’s so rare to see characters like these depicted in mainstream media let alone written with any attempt at nuance and rising above usual stereotypes.

hm... that was a very long and rambling answer and tbh i’m not sure if it actually answered you properly skjnfskjsf but tl;dr personally yes i do tend to relate to viet characters in western media even if they’re not viet-american, like Kieu My! I hope i explained why in a way that made at least a little bit of sense =]