CVK
The San Fransisco Chronicle covers a study of Asian Americans in primetime TV that demonstrates (surprise, surprise) that they’re way under-represented:

Asians, who make up 5 percent of the U.S. population, play 2.7 percent of regular characters. It also shows virtually no Asian actors are on situation comedies, and the characters they play in dramas tend to have less depth than most regulars, with minimal on-screen time and few romantic roles.

The article also talks about the presence of Asian characters played by mixed actors:

Only two Asian characters in the study were depicted outside their homes, and both were portrayed by biracial actors of Asian and white heritage.

With no Asian characters, CBS had the lowest representation of on-screen Asians.

The study “focused on a small slice of the prime-time television landscape, overlooking recurring roles where CBS has made progress in diversifying casts,” CBS spokesman Phil Gonzalez said, adding that “Clubhouse,” a short-lived television show that aired last fall, featured Dean Cain, an actor whose father is partly Japanese.

While the writer certainly doesn’t come out and say it, the overall sense I get from this article is that the writer believes that when networks use biracial Asian actors, that’s just not Asian ENOUGH.

This issue rears its ugly head all the time when you talk about media representations. On the one hand, why do mixed Asians constantly need to prove their Asian-ness? Similar studies about representations of African-Americans in the media never draw this distinction between “full” blacks and mixed blacks (that’s the one-drop rule at work, I know, but still…).

But on the other hand, you do have to question why a network would choose an actor with a biracial “look” over a “pure” Asian-looking actor. Is someone with visibly European features considered less threatening? more attractive? ethnic enough without going overboard?