I’ve worked as a minority actor in television since the age of 10. Being a woman of Chinese descent, I am proud of my Asian ethnicity. However, a pattern ensued within my characters’ physical attributes, and no one could even see my face.

Top cable scripted roles only represented 3 percent of Asian Americans during the 2016-2017 season, according to UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report 2019. The research concluded that, “Despite notable gains for the group since the previous report (particularly in television), people of color remained underrepresented on every industry employment front in 2016-2017.” Underrepresentation is apparently not enough. In the animation industry, where the actor’s appearance is concealed, minorities often must yield to two options: either be typecast or whitewashed.

As a newcomer to voice acting, I auditioned for multiple projects and was – to my disappointment – persistently rejected. Sometimes I received a callback, but I never heard from the casting agents afterwards (my initial introduction to ghosting). I did not land a recurring role until I was around 12 years old.

“You booked the job on ‘Sofia the First!’” My father announced. A euphoric jitter overwhelmed me – I’m going to be a Disney Princess, I thought. My character’s name was Princess Jun. She was a fair-skinned Asian princess dressed in a yellow kimono, jade earrings and a floral barrette clipped near her bun. The industry allured me – I craved more.

A few months later, the creators for another Disney series, “Phineas and Ferb,” were in search of a replacement actor for a character on their show. The directors of “Sofia the First” referenced me to voice the character, and I eventually received an offer for the part. My agent informed me that I would be portraying a Fireside Girl named Ginger Hirano. She was a preteen Asian girl with straight, jet black hair and olive skin. During one of my episodes titled ‘Bee Day/Bee Story,’ Ginger expressed her affections towards one of the only other Asian characters named Baljeet, and she later rapped about bee communication.

My parents drove me to the animation studios in Los Angeles whenever these directors needed my voice. Upon arrival, an assistant would hand me the finalized script. I rehearsed the lines in my cartoon voice; my American accent remained the same, just a few octaves higher for the characters. The recording process became customary to me: say the line three times, stop, move onto the next one and repeat.

As these shows wrapped their season finales, I returned to auditioning for pilot season when I was about 14. Although I was fond of the experiences at Disney, I wanted to perform as a complex character with a mature voice – I was a “full-fledged” teenager in high school now. However, the only challenge these potential roles possessed were their requirements to either speak with a Chinese accent and/or fluent Mandarin. I am an American-born Chinese (ABC) from Southern California. I grew up with a Valley Girl accent instead of a Chinese one. The only Mandarin I recalled were foods, colors and nursery rhymes.

“These are the kinds of skills you need to learn if you want to be an actor,” my mother said. She wrote down the translations in Pinyin (the conversion of Chinese characters into letters from the English alphabet) with an array of strokes over the vowels on my audition sheet. I had to enunciate the sounds of each syllable since Mandarin requires a precise tone. Instead of saying mā (mom), one could accidentally call their mother a mǎ (horse).

These aren’t the skills all famous actors had to learn, I thought to myself. They’re the ones I need to have in order to make it as a Chinese actor.

From Disney Channel Original Movie, “Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior,” to Jonathan Ke Quan’s character Data in “The Goonies,” I grew up with these Asian stereotypes depicted in films and television. The doctor, the geek, the marching band performer and the most notable, the kick-ass martial artist and warrior. If an Asian actor somehow managed to weave out of these categories, he or she were usually unable to surpass the most significant barrier: their skin color.

The animation industry equally contributes to this continual dilemma of typecasting, yet these matters tend to remain disregarded. Ming-Na Wen, the voice of Disney’s Mulan and my mother, still endures off-screen typecasting during her career that spans over three decades. “Oftentimes than not, I don’t get considered for other roles in animation unless it is an Asian character,” Wen said. “Aside from ‘Adventure Time,’ where I voiced Finn’s Mom, I’ve only voiced one other character that is not an Asian role. It was in ‘Parallel Man: Infinite Pursuit,’ an animated short. Well, I did voice Hala in ‘Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors’ and Phyla-Vell in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ But they were aliens, so that can’t be part of this conversation.”

With recent animations such as DreamWorks’ “Abominable” and Pixar’s “Bao,” Hollywood only sheds an inch of light on Asian-led projects as long as they linger within the bounds of Asian culture. The 2018 film “Crazy Rich Asians” may have led to more recognition of Asians within the industry, but it failed to relinquish Asian clichés.

However, at least these particular animation films cast Asian (or half-Asian) actors, including Chloe Bennet as Yi and Tsai Chin as Nai Nai in “Abominable.” Several shows still permit white actors to voice POC characters, including Netflix’s acclaimed series “BoJack Horseman” starring Alison Brie as Diane Nguyen, a Vietnamese writer. Apu on “The Simpsons” is another ideal case of whitewashing in animation. The voice actor of Apu, Hank Azaria, mimics a stereotypical accent for the South Asian role. White actors receive offers for Asian cartoon characters, but rarely does this occur vice-versa.

“When ‘Mulan’ came along, I was at the right place at the right time. I felt it was right and important that the producers and director of ‘Mulan’ looked to cast an Asian to voice Mulan. Of course, not all the parts went that way. But sometimes, it is important to find the right voice for the role, which worked out fine because there was a conscious effort to cast as many Asians for the film as possible. That wasn’t a consideration in finding voice actors for ‘Aladdin,’ which came a few years before ‘Mulan.’ All the lead roles went to white actors and no one thought much about it back in 1992. Back then, whitewashing was not even an issue. Not like it is now. What’s interesting is that the same blind casting doesn’t apply to actors of color. You would think that there’d be more open-minded casting when it comes to animated characters, not less,” Wen said.

Frustrated and discouraged in learning an Asian dialect, I ultimately declined many of these auditions. I requested for fewer parts that needed this technique, but the outcome was little to no audition opportunities. My name and past roles dubbed me a diversity card; an Asian masquerading as other Asians in cartoon format.

Why should the talent of Asian actors be limited to only voicing similar characters of color, especially if their actual faces aren’t on-screen? The purpose of animation is to wander through the realm of imagination – to transform into a new identity. With this in mind, the animation industry should grant minority actors the respect they deserve and offer the same objective approach – the one handed to white actors with ease – towards future roles.