It makes me feel small & stupid when people ask me, "Wait, why did YOU get a show about manga?!"
I did not GET anything. I've been working in manga and anime since 2004 & more than a decade later..am allowed to be on camera about it.

I did not have anything fall into my lap. I took a chance in 2003 driving my ass across America from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles for an unpaid internship at a manga company to learn about licensing. After, I LIVED in Japan for THREE YEARS learning language, pop culture & business.

I moved back to LA in 2007 for a job
editing the English version of the Gothic & Lolita Bible (which I pitched while interning there in 2003) only to get EFFED by the publishing industry & laid off in June 2008, just so that they could rehire me on for less $ and no..

Medical insurance to complete the last couple of issues. Also, no, I am not Japanese. I spent decades learning the language, without any aptitude for it. It was hard, but very worth it. I spent 6+ years learning to produce, style & write scripts, and most of all.. PITCH MYSELF.

I'm not receiving these jobs from some sort of "job fairy." I'm going out there & pitching scripts, business plans & ideas to try to make a more diverse & educated world for us nerds. Soo EXCUSEE ME PRINCESS if I have some eye rolling to do about your opinions about my hard work.

& while we're at it, I'd like to shout from the rooftops that I have, time &again been passed over bc "there was already another Asian person" cast on a show. WE AREN'T ALL THE SAME YOU NUMBNUTS.
As a Vietnamese American girl, I'm told to "bleach my skin"...

..so I have more chances to be on camera bc no one will hire me if I'm "brown". This is PATHETIC AND WRONG.

My parents came here as immigrants during the Vietnam war. My father was bullied and abused while working at the steel mills in Pittsburgh because he "worked too much." During lunch, he would take off his boots and come back to find they were filled with water or soil.

His co-workers told him that he was making them "look bad" because he did too much. He never said anything because felt like he didn't belong there.
I am my father's daughter. But I will not be silent.