Before Madelyn Chung founded The RepresentASIAN Project, she was a magazine editor in the fashion and beauty space.
“I was kind of at this point in my life where I wasn’t feeling fulfilled in what I was writing about,” she tells me. “I was like, I’m really tired of writing about the Kardashians—I don’t want to be doing this anymore.”
When she quit her nine-to-five to pursue music therapy, her freelance writing took on a newly personal form. In melding her pop culture prowess with her perspective as a second generation Chinese Canadian, she became increasingly passionate about advocating for the Asian North American community.
Today, she’s a multi-faceted writer, speaker, and founder of a platform dedicated to celebrating, advocating, and elevating Asian voices in media, and beyond. Catch us in conversation with Madelyn ahead, as we chat about everything from the pitfalls of representation to the double edged sword of Asian-inspired beauty trends.
What sparked your passion for advocating for Asian representation in media, and how did it lead to the creation of The RepresentASIAN Project?
Growing up, not seeing people who looked like me and only seeing negative portrayals of that really made me feel embarrassed to be Asian, embarrassed to be Chinese. And I really tried to assimilate with my white peers as much as possible. I really tried to just stay as far away as possible from my own culture, and it was tough.
I think I had so much internalized racism because of that, because I didn't see people who looked like me around me. Flash forward to 2018 when Crazy Rich Asians came out and that, as you may or may not know, was the first Hollywood movie in 25 years since the Joy Luck Club, to have a predominantly Asian cast, that was a huge moment. I ended up writing an article for FLARE Magazine about how this wasn't just a movie, it was a sign that I mattered too.
It was one of the first times I was writing about identity. I wrote that article and it was so well received. So I was like, okay, I think I could really do something here writing more from the lens of my perspective as a Chinese Canadian woman who's a second generation Canadian.
I started to tailor my pitches to be more from my point of view and perspective. Some publications were great and they took the stuff; others said that it was too niche for their audience—which was very telling about the Canadian media landscape.
In 2019, I was in school in the middle of doing an internship, and I suddenly got just a download of ideas. [I envisioned a] platform where it could be all from the Asian perspective. It's the kind of thing I wish I had when I was younger.
I thought of the name The RepresentASIAN Project. I made a really terrible temporary logo and secured all of the account handles. That's how it started. The website officially launched March 11th, 2020, which was the day COVID was declared a global pandemic.
That was a very interesting experience. First of all, I was like, wow, there are much more important things to worry about right now in the world. But what was interesting was, as you probably know, there was so much Asian hate that came around that time.
I, of course, had to pivot from my original idea because we were in the middle of a pandemic. I couldn't go and interview people, take their photos, take videos, so it turned out to be very social-focused. It was the perfect timing because I think a lot of people, a lot of Asian people, needed that community.
As someone who was once a beauty editor and writer, how do you feel about the trend-ification of Asian-inspired beauty products and practices on social media?
One of the mottos people used during the rise of anti-Asian hate was “love our people like you love our food.” I think that encapsulates what you're talking about too. People are so quick to be like, yes, we're going to adopt yoga, and TCM, and K beauty, and all of that stuff.
It's a trend and it's popular, but are people actually learning about the traditional roots of it all? I see so many brands have jade rollers and everything, and I'm like, do you even know what this was initially used for? Are you putting down that history?
I think people are still so quick to jump on those things with all different cultures, but they don't necessarily want to put in the work to learn more about it and also give back to the communities where it comes from.
Personally, I try to make it a point of, if I'm buying a gua sha, I'm going to buy it from an Asian-owned brand. What's interesting as well is the shift towards the K-pop world. We are seeing a different standard of beauty than we used to see, but I think it's still so limited even within the Asian community—there's so much racism within it.
When it comes to Asian representation in general, we're seeing more, but we're seeing a lot of the same people and the same kinds of people. That's where we still need to grow and expand.
How can storytelling and narrative representation be powerful tools for promoting understanding and empathy across cultures?
I think as a society, we have seen the power of storytelling. To hear someone's personal perspective, to hear about their experiences—whether it's joyful, whether it's traumatic—to give it more context is extremely powerful right now.
Storytelling is humanity. You're putting that human aspect into the story, and that's really important. I think that's why it's so important for us, all of us, to be able to tell our own stories, to be able to have the platform and the opportunity to tell our own stories from our perspective and not necessarily have someone else tell it for us.
There's been a lot of films and TV shows where they'll have Asian actors or whatnot, but it's white writers or people who aren't Asian writers, and it's like, how are you going to understand all of the nuances, all of the little things. I think it has to come from that person or that community in order for it to be told the correct way.
In your view, what progress has been made in recent years regarding Asian representation, and where do you see room for improvement?
It’s also about ensuring that off camera there's as much representation as there is on camera. I went to a talk a few weeks ago about Asian representation and diversity, and one of the speakers, who is an actor and producer based in LA, was talking about how visibility [has increased], but we're constantly seeing the same faces.
It's certain actors [who] are getting much more visibility, so it seems like we have more [diversity]. I'd love to see other people get a seat at the table in these projects as opposed to seeing the same faces all the time, for them to be the token.
What role do media platforms play in shaping perceptions of Asian identity, and how can they better represent the diversity of Asian experiences?
I have a lot of qualms with traditional media having worked in it and seen what it's like from the inside. It seems like the agenda is still okay, give them a little bit here, give this community a little bit here, give this community a bit there. But as a whole, we're still going to keep going business as usual.
Media can shape perception when there's bias. Of course, it's really, really hard for any person to not have bias based on their own lived experiences. But the scary part is, if one person's only looking at one news publication and it's only written from one point of view, that's all that person's going to know.
Media is so powerful because it's all we're consuming lately. We're also stuck to our devices. So what's being put out there? If stuff is homogenous, then I am almost scared for what the world will be if we can't have all of these different perspectives.
Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee's daughter, was [at a recent talk] and she said something that I've been thinking about ever since. She was saying how diversity is health. If you think about it, when we are eating foods, we need to have a diverse range of foods. The ecosystem needs to be diverse.
When things are homogenous, that's when diseases come up. Diversity is health. We need all of this for our society to thrive, for us to collectively thrive.
What advice would you give to emerging Asian creatives who are striving to break into the media industry and make their voices heard?
Put yourself out there. I think a lot of us are scared to put ourselves out there—whether we're scared we're not going to do as well as someone else, of how people will view us, or we're scared of being different. But all you can do is really put yourself out there because if anything, your story, your perspective is going to touch at least one other person.
If I can touch at least one other person, I feel really good about that because it made another person feel less alone. It made another person feel less ostracized, less scared. It's just human connection. I think that's the other thing about storytelling, right? Storytelling is humanity, but also connection. It's how we connect to other people.
How can individuals outside the Asian community support and contribute to the efforts of The RepresentASIAN Project and similar initiatives?
I think as a whole, it's just a matter of diversifying your life, whether you're diversifying your feeds, the content you consume, [or] the people that you interact with. I think it's really important to hear each other's stories and each other's perspectives.
If you have the opportunity to support a small local business, do that as well. But I think the way forward is just diversifying your life.