Asian Americans and Mistaken Identity

By Jeff | Monday, February 16, 2009 | 18 Comments

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“I got an adult small for Jason,” said the team mom of Number Two Son’s basketball team about the team uniforms she handed out.
“Wait, you’re not Jason’s dad, are you?”

No, I am not. She was mistaking me for the other Filipino kid’s Dad. One hazard of being Asian-American seems to be that many people can’t tell you apart from other Asian-Americans. Strangers often ask whether my two sons are twins. They don’t look alike to me, and one is even several inches taller than the other! Journalist Lisa Ling is often mistaken for actress Lucy Liu, and she doesn’t always appreciate that, as this blogger attests. It’s happened enough times to warrant a Yahoo Answers thread, a diatribe on The View, and even a celebrity deathmatch!

imageNY12201032254 Asian Americans and Mistaken Identity lucy liu picture 2 Asian Americans and Mistaken Identity

Sometimes our identities are mistaken because of the roles that others assume of us. I remember that John once mentioned that at trade shows, people would assume that he was an engineer and not a product manager. When I needed to pick up my mother-in-law at Stanford Hospital, I brought in her own personal wheelchair. After I got to my my mother-in-law’s room, the nurse started ordering me around, assuming that I was just another Filipino Nursing Aide! The Wife (a nurse) thought that was hilarious.

These are relatively harmless cases of mistaken identities. Sometimes mistaken identity is not so benign. Fear of mistaken identity may have been a factor why Lena Yada got dumped by WWE shortly after they acquired Gail Kim. Far more serious is the case of Chol Soo Lee, who spent 10 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit. He received neither an apology nor any compensation from the state of California.

Does mistaken identity happen to you often? Are your cases fairly harmless, or have you run into serious problems? What are your stories of mistaken identity?

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Christine

That’s hilarious. I’ve never watched Lisa Ling before, so I do get mixed up with those pictures (however, I get mixed up with actresses, of any race, all the time!). It really doesn’t help when the Asian fashion magazines get over-photoshopped. I can’t distinguish between models.
http://www.littleyellowdifferent.com Ernie

On Flickr, people actively confuse me in photographs with Efren, and vice-versa. Game, Set, Match.
http://chgoblknazn.blogspot.com/ Keisha Kornbread

I am guilty of this but it has always been accidental.
Lucky 8

Well it’s not always hilarious in some cases. Vincent Chin was an actual victim of mistaken identity, and not many people know about him either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtdFeDx48Q
http://happyinvestor.wordpress.com bumscientist

When you have billions of people, some are bound to look the same.
Kim

Another door that swings both ways perhaps?

10 years ago, my sister always told me I looked like David Letterman, Others thought I sorta did.. But at the White Swan hotel in Guangzhou, there were several Chinese who swore I was David—and wouldn’t let me go, creating quite a bit of excitement in the lobby—even with with my protesting to the contrary. One guy kept shoving a city map in my face wanting my autograph on it.. Finally had to: “Best of luck!! —Dave” before he let me go..

No chance of that anymore—since his heart problem, Dave has lost a lot of weight, while I’ve gained some..
http://www.8asians.com John

Lucy Liu and Lisa Ling – well, both of their first and last names do start with L’s, and Lucy and Lisa are common enough names, and to be honest, I have always found both of them to be pretty cute, so for some to confuse the two, I am not so surprised.
http://jenchang.blogspot.com Jen

a drunk frat guy once thought i was sandra oh. a waitress thought i was devon aoki.

odd since i don’t think i look anything like sandra or devon!
Bo

And remember during the Beijing Olympics everyone thought any tall white dude was Michael Phelps.
Josh Chau

It’s interesting that no one has yet mentioned the percentages of ethnic diversity in both China and the US.

The US is very diverse ethnically and Americans by virtue are exposed to many more ethnicities than those in China. I’m unsure of the percentages of ethnic diversity in major metropolitan areas of China but if my own time in Xiamen was any indicator I would say that it is at significantly less than %1 non-Asian. I went for days without seeing non-Asians i knew weren’t just visiting.

In the US Asians are about %5 of the population. In major metropolitan areas the number is significantly higher. While it’s understandable to mistake identity between those of a similar ethnicity it’s important to say that perhaps the exposure of non-white ethnicities may not be wide spread enough such that most Americans can make a distinction.

This leads back to my gripe about Asians and the media that I will not go on again.
Kim

Same experience here, Josh, Being a white guy in any large inland city that isn’t cosmopolitan still draws stares from the overwhelmingly Han population. I also, can go days without seeing other whites in some cities.

10 years ago, taking daughter # 1 back for the PRC 50th. anniversary—to a packed Tiananmen Square—even in Beijing—constant shock and pointing at the whites with a Han child..
http://www.deviantart.com/chandrasaurusrex Chandra

My boyfriend has been mistaken for Jet Li more than 4 times. Everytime this has happened, it has been in Atlantic City. I do not see much of a resemblance, but a couple of people have asked to take a picture with him, although they knew it wasn’t Jet Li, they were going to tell their friends that anyways. When he mentions being Vietnamese, not Chinese, their eyes just sort of glaze over. Although I once overheard some guy at a bar say: “Jet Li has a hot girlfriend!” That was flattering.
Katiez

When we were growing up, people routinely assumed my sister and I were twins – despite the fact that we are actually four years apart. I always thought it was strange and in my youthful snarkiness was always very blunt with how ridiculous I thought the idea was.

As we are both half Asian and half Caucasian I can’t say I’ve ever been mistaken for a celebrity though.
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http://charlessfo.livejournal.com Charles

There are regularly pairs of people that I–a white guy–mix up, usually in one direction. Whenever I call the wrong person by the wrong name and they happen to be a person of color, I’m always afraid they’ll think it’s because I think all x people look alike. Sometimes I get a look from them that implies that’s exactly what they thought. What they don’t realize is that it also happens to me with white folks, and at least as frequently. I’m just crappy with names.
JD

This happens to all races… I was visiting Daytona FL and stopped into the NASCAR museum at the raceway. That year Jeff Gordon won the Nextel Cup and as I was getting my picture made by my wife in front of his car that year, Asian tourists wanted their picture with me. I tried to tell them that I was not Jeff Gordon (although I was wearing his hat), but they did not speak english and ignored my plea. I stood there for fifteen minutes taking pictures and signing autographs as Jeff Gordon until my wife got pissed and we left. I was very surprised that I was not arrested for imitating him.
osazuwa

Im a big black dude who has lived most of his adult life in Asia, so no problems for me in this arena… anymore. I remember first year of Catholic high school I would confuse these two Vietnamese girls. But I got past it pretty quick.

The only problem I have now is when I lose my Chinese wife in a crowd of Chinese people–everyone has the same freaking hair color. Good thing is my wife has this particular waddle when she walks, easy to spot in a crowd.

Lisa Ling, one of my childhood crush, is way hotter than Lucy Liu. Way hotter.
http://www.myspace.com/krantzstone Krantzstone

Interestingly enough, I don’t think I’ve actually been mistaken for another Asian person, at least not to my immediate recollection. I’m pretty sure I would remember if it had happened, because it probably would piss me off unless the guy actually did look somewhat like me. I was going to rant about how it’s racist, but I forgot that even Caucasians screw up Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman… and actually so do I. I mean, I know which is which, but I’ll forget which one I’m talkinga bout because they have the same damned first name and beginning first letter. And I’d argue that they look less alike to each other than Lisa Ling and Lucy Liu who are both ‘L.L.’s and bear very strikingly similar features (although clearly the proportions of their facial features and the shape of their face/heads are entirely different). I think I would be able to tell them apart, but I might mistakenly use one name for the other, for no other reason than they’re both ‘L.L.’s. And there are people who have difficulty with faces and names (I think it’s an autistic trait for some) so I have to cut people some slack. I probably would get mad if it was out of sheer laziness though. That reminds me of the Japanese tourists in ‘Crocodile Dundee’ who mistake Dundee for “Clint Eastwood”. Well, one of them does, the other guy isn’t sure, and thinks it’s not him. I have to admit I cracked up at that one.

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