Why We Need Better Representation of Asian Women (Explained in Terms of Harry Potter!)

Video courtesy of Button Poetry. For more amazing spoken word performances, check them out on YouTube and Facebook.

You’ve seen the stereotype before: Asian woman falls in love with white hero and then cries when he inevitably leaves her. Asian women as a tragic fetish. It’s one of the most tired tropes around Asian women in our media and, yes, even extends to Harry Potter.

Check out this kickass poem by Rachel Rostad to JK Rowling on how this kind of representation is damaging and dehumanizing and why we need to do better.

To learn more about this issue, check out the following:

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Rachel Rostad is a senior at Macalester College, studying English, Anthropology, and Human Rights and Humanitarianism. A two-time member of the nationally recognized Macalester College slam poetry team, she is winner of “Best Of The Rest” at college nationals. She was a semifinalist at National Poetry Slam 2013, as a member of Minneapolis’s team. That year, she also became the 19th Macalester College Cultural House Poetry Slam Champion. In 2014, she became a literature contributor for Gazillion Voices, a national adoptee magazine, and a blog writer for Hypen Magazine. Rachel is also the recipient of an Academy Of American Poets Prize for her written work, and she has been published in Cider Press Review, Chanter Literary Magazine, and Mandala Journal. Follow her on Twitter @are_why_are.