Asian Heritage Month: 3 women reflect on being the ‘odd one out’ to now influencing the world

From left to right: Tiffany Lai, Katie Cung and Gelsey Latonio. (Instagram)

From standing out because of the shape of their eyes or the food in their lunch boxes to now influencing what Quebecers and Canadians consider beautiful, smart and interesting, three women look back on how being Asian went from unfashionable to trendy within the last decade.

‘Weed in a manicured lawn’

Tiffany Lai is perhaps one of Quebec’s most well-known Asian faces.

Already blessed with a blend of two distinct cultures - Chinese and Vietnamese - Lai describes growing up Asian in white, French Canada as feeling “like a weed growing in a perfectly manicured lawn.”

She recalls one particular incident in kindergarten when her parents were asked to chaperone a lunchtime activity.

“It made me realize that they weren’t just my parents, but immigrants who spoke broken English with a heavy accent,” she said. “That was probably the first time I realized that my family moved through the world differently than many of the families around us.”

Lai says all her childhood influences came from the West, purely by way of growing up here, adding that she didn’t always treat herself with kindness.

“I unfortunately carried a lot of internalized racism,” she said.

“It affects how you see yourself, how you speak, what you bring for lunch, and how much of your culture you’re willing to show.”

Lai says it was only when she started experimenting with a new phenomenon, a little over a decade ago - social media - that her eyes opened to the world of possibilities.

“People don’t have to wait for Western media to ‘approve’ what’s cool anymore,” she said. “Young audiences are growing up globally connected, so embracing cultures from other countries feels much more natural.”

That realization was both joyous and “a bit of a rollercoaster,” Lai admits, because “there was a time, not that long ago, when being visibly Chinese online felt heavy.”

She points to the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw a sharp rise in anti-Asian sentiment.

“I remember feeling that tension very personally,” she said. “About three years ago, I posted a video about eating a traditional bird dish in China and got dragged on the internet for it.”

Looking back, Lai says she’s proud of how much she’s evolved in how she sees and shares herself with the world.

“It [social media] exposed me to people who look like me, who embrace their heritage unapologetically,” she said.

“Seeing that representation helped me unlearn a lot of what I had internalized. Over time, that exposure turned into pride.”

That unapologetic embracing is something Lai says she wants to model for young people.

“Your identity, your culture, your quirks, they’re all part of who you are,” she insists.

“Growing up, society often tells us that we need to ‘fit in’ or downplay parts of ourselves, but true confidence comes from embracing what makes you, you.”

‘Make your own rules’

Katie Cung wasn’t always Katie Cung.

Her legal name is Phuong Khanh - not an easy pronouncer unless you’re Vietnamese, she’ll admit.

“As early as Grade 1, I always had to correct my teachers on the pronunciation of my name,” she said. “I’d have to put my hand up and tell the teacher to call me by ‘Katie’ instead of my Asian name.”

As one of the few kids in her school who had to westernize her name, Cung says she still clearly remembers how different it made her feel to her classmates.

“I always felt like I had a ‘double personality.’”

“I spoke 99 per cent of the time in Vietnamese with my parents and grandmother, ate Vietnamese food and followed Vietnamese traditions,” she said. “In school, I would speak French and would try my best to fit into the Western mould.”

Cung says things quickly changed when she started high school, an ecosystem that was much more diverse, where she finally met people “like me.”

“I definitely felt seen and understood by my peers who, like me, grew up in an Asian household but lived in a predominantly white society,” she said. “I also started consuming more Asian content, like Michelle Phan on YouTube, watching K-dramas, etc., which made me more comfortable in my own skin.”

Cung admits it took her a while to fully embrace her culture, and credits her parents for “forcing” her to participate in Vietnamese traditions.

“I’m so grateful for my parents to have ‘forced’ us to speak Vietnamese at home and to have kept all the Vietnamese traditions like Lunar New Year, praying to our ancestors,” she said.

“I’m so proud to be Vietnamese, but that feeling definitely wasn’t as strong for me growing up in a western society.”

Her parting words to any young people struggling to accept themselves: “We were told our whole lives to keep our heads down and to follow the rules. I say: hold your head high and make your own rules.”

‘Sticking out no matter what’

As a child growing up in Vancouver, B.C., Gelsey Latonio says she never realized she was a “visible minority” because, technically, she wasn’t.

“I grew up in schools where it was mostly immigrants,” she said. “Even though I went to high school in a white neighbourhood, it was still very Asian.”

She jokes that she didn’t realize she was Asian until she moved to Quebec at the young age of 20.

“I didn’t know that I looked different. I didn’t know that I ate different foods,” she said.

As a young adult branching out on her own, Latonio says she went through what many young Asian people experience as children.

“It was pretty isolating because I always felt like people would stare at me,” she said. “I went from being an invisible part of the majority to very clearly a visible minority.”

One question she remembers having to answer often: Where are you from? And they didn’t mean Vancouver.

“They were actually trying to ask a different question,” she said. “I finally figured out that what they were asking was actually, ‘Why do you look the way you look?’ or, ‘Why do you have the accent that you have?’”

Latonio says she started giving those curious people what they wanted.

“I’m from Vancouver, but my parents are from the Philippines.”

Latonio says she also went through a time when she tried to “white-ify” herself - a common immigrant experience.

“I found myself actually forgetting that I was Asian sometimes because I was just trying to fit in,” she said. “I’d never gone skiing before. I went camping.”

As she’s gotten older, Latonio says she’s started leaning into her heritage, instead of running from it.

“I’m already going to stick out no matter where I go, so I might as well own it and talk proudly about it,” she said.