“I have a bigger purpose.”
On her arm, a gentleman caller.
“You know what I mean?”
Her intensity reverberates across the table like a soundwave.
Ruo Bing Li
But lets back up a moment.
Rather, portraying Ji-Ah marked a paradigm shift that has set Jamie off on a new trajectory.
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How does it serveyourcharacters story?"
(After Ji-Ah) era: a television show she conceptualized herself, pitched and sold entirely over Zoom.
I ask her if, perhaps, she thinks being Asian American has to do with this.
Top, Skirt: Private Policy; Bodysuit: Shuting Qiu; Earrings: Rebecca Pinto; Shoes: Balenciaga
“Oh, I think that has everything to do with it,” she says without hesitating.
But times are changing.
“Like this whole model minority bullshit, you know?”
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It’s been a slow burning…like unraveling."
“It’s lit something in me that I’ve never felt before.”
Chung’s upbringing was not dissimilar to many Asians growing up in America in the ’90s and early 2000s.
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And it’s happened multiple times."
“Maybe instead of blaming these people, blame the system,” she challenges.
“That’s what put us there.”
Dress: Tibi; Top: Angel Chen; Shoes: Angel Chen; Earrings: Dinosaur Design
“Our civil rights rode on the same wave as Black civil rights.
Any kind of injustice to any race is an injustice for all of us.
The whole model minority myth is also put in place to further divide us, instead of coming together.
We have to remember we are powerful in numbers.”
“I’m literally numb,” she replies flatly.
Where does one find hope in hopelessness, power in powerless, strength in exhaustion?
For Jamie, it’s moments like these she turns into her craft.
And the more those stories are shared, the more their power grows.
“I ask myself, how do I use this energy in a productive way?”
You just have to turn it.
It’s like jiu-jitsuyou take that shit, and then you flip it."
“It just takes recognizing our value,” she notes.
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“Because we were always here.
“But nor would I want to.
I’ve been married for five years and I won’t even change my last name!
Ill never do it.
I love my husband, but its just my identity.
Im never gonna change it.”
Top, Pants: Tibi Shoes: Prada; Earrings: Dinosaur Design
After all, she has an ulterior motive for wanting children, beyond just becoming a mother.
