keanu reeves' asian-hawaiian heritage and why you shouldn't invalidate it, a thread

since this matter surfaced again, i think it's time to do a thread. keanu's father was chinese-hawaiian and his mother is english. his grandma was chinese and he had more contact with his asian heritage through her

he was born in beirut, spent his early years in astralia and new york, but most of his formative years he spent in canada where he began to study acting as a teenager. therefore he is canadian

at the beginning of keanu's career people usually described him as the "son of a chinese-hawaiian father and an english mother." he has a hawaiian name, when asked about the origin of it, he always talk about hawaii and his father's side of the family

throughout the years keanu mentions some aspects of him honoring his asian roots here and there through his movies. this was never a secret, but people just didn't pay much attention to it.

recently, this changed because of his appearance in the movie "always be my maybe" (2019)

always be my maybe (2019) has an all asian cast, written and starring ali wong. when asked about getting keanu for the movie, she says: "we wanted it to be an asian american icon who's funny and a great actor"

so here it is, an asian american woman who grew up in the asian community talking about reclaiming keanu reeves

during the movie release, keanu stated that he identifies himself as a person of color, but doesn't want to be a spokesperson

i can also mention how the matrix was deeply inspired by asian cinema. there are rumors neo's role was written for brandon lee (the son of the iconic bruce lee, who died in 1993) and then, they got keanu who also has chinese ancestry

my dad is asian, my mom is white and i'm asian. my asian ancestry's always remembered if not by my family, by everyone else around me and a lot of times it wasn't in a positive way. i bet keanu with his "unusual" name and heritage went through a similar thing growing up in canada

plus, when we're part asian we kind of feel we don't belong much in anywhere since we're not white enough nor asian enough. so please, don't invalidate keanu's asian-hawaiian ancestry

here's a great article that talks about not only keanu but asian representantion on cinema in general https://www.inkstonenews.com/arts/keanu-reeves-and-his-asian-roots/article/3018919