In Conversation with Kaila Yu
Following our My Asian Era Book Club discussion of Fetishized, we had the opportunity to send a few written questions to author Kaila Yu. Her responses are open, thoughtful, and honest much like the memoir itself. We talked about visibility, insecurity, representation, and what it means to reclaim your own story after years of being defined by others.
Family and Generational Reflection
When you began recognizing fetishization in your own life, did you ever speak with your mother or other women in your family about their experiences? How did those conversations or your family’s reactions during difficult times shape how you processed what happened to you?
I talk to my family, like many East Asian families, we didn’t discuss our emotions. I stayed silent about my sexual assault, which was tied to fetishization, for decades. Finally being able to name it and speak it out loud has been incredibly healing.Reclaiming the Self-Gaze
You’ve written that “no one fetishized me more than I fetishized myself.” What moment or realization marked the beginning of breaking that internalized gaze?
I never examined my own role in fetishizing myself until the pandemic, when #StopAsianHate and the Atlanta spa shootings forced a reckoning.Media, Visibility, and the Asian Gaze
In Fetishized, you explore the absence of complex Asian female characters while growing up. Now we’re seeing projects like K-Pop Demon Hunters, created by Asian women and marketed as progressive, yet still steeped in idol culture and stylized performance. From your perspective, do productions like this represent real progress in how Asian femininity is portrayed or do they risk reinforcing the exact expectations of perfection and spectacle that Fetishized warns against?
I see K-Pop Demon Hunters as real progress. I would’ve loved to see powerful Asian girls like that growing up. But you’re right to point out what I hadn’t initially noticed: the aesthetic of model minority perfection lingers.Are you familiar with the movie Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and do you have any thoughts about it?
I’ve definitely heard of it but I’ve never watched it!Visibility vs. Stereotype
In your “Not Lucy Liu” chapter, you discuss the trade-off between visibility and stereotype. How do you think about that balance now, and what advice would you give to actors or creators navigating it today?
When I was young, many believed that visibility alone was progress. In 2025, we should expect so much more. Our multifaceted humanity must be showcased. Before saying yes or posting, consider if it's expanding the narrative or just regurgitating old and dated fantasies.Assimilation and Repair
You write that assimilation can look like escape while deepening harm. What forms of “repair”, personal or cultural, have felt most real to you since finishing the book?
For me, repair has been slow, painful, and messy. Culturally, repair simply means learning to exist on my own terms without performing. It’s going to be a lifetime journey!The Atlanta Spa Shootings - Three Years Later
The Atlanta spa shootings sparked this memoir. Three years later, how has your understanding of that event’s impact on you and on public conversations about Asian women evolved?
When it happened, I realized that something I’d always known subconsciously about the fetishization of Asian women had finally become visible to me and in public. Three years later, I see that moment as a reckoning. It made writing this memoir feel less like a choice and more like a responsibility.Agency and Representation
What signs tell you that an Asian female character or a story was written with real agency rather than designed for consumption? What does meaningful representation look like to you now?
For me, it’s when she isn’t framed around desirability or acceptability (as a model minority). She’s allowed to be complicated and messy and fully human.From Stage to Screen to Self-Definition
From performing with Nylon Pink to now defining your image as a writer and public voice, how has visibility evolved for you? Do you see today’s self-branding culture as empowerment or another version of being looked at?
In my Nylon Pink and import modeling days, I embraced sexualized self-promotion. As a writer, I’m interested in a different kind of visibility—being deeply understood. Today’s self-branding culture is a form of consumption but I would argue it’s healthier than the hypersexualized landscape of the early aughts.Cultural Dismantling and Progress
Representation has improved, but tropes persist. Beyond visibility, what kinds of structural or creative changes would actually dismantle fetishization rather than simply diversify it?
Representation matters so much, but structural change is even more imperative. I would love to see even more Asians in positions of creative power: writing narratives, controlling editing, casting, and funding.Advice for the Next Generation
If a young Asian woman entering entertainment today feels pressure to “play the part” to be noticed, what concrete counsel would you offer her?
I understand the instinct to lean into stereotypes, I did it too, it’s so much easier than fighting back! But the attention you get is ultimately limiting and confining you. Build your own authentic voice. Being desired is so fleeting, being truly seen is so much more nourishing.And. You identified with The Velveteen Rabbit as a child. Throughout the story, the Velveteen Rabbit questions their own Realness. It is only when they are with the Boy that they seem to not doubt their Realness. Nowadays, do you see yourself in the Boy as well?
Thanks for the question! I hadn’t thought about it that way before, but now that I do, I can see some of myself in him. The Boy loves with a purity of heart that I aspire to. I’m still learning to love all the parts of myself, but maybe that’s a lifetime work, learning to unconditionally love myself!
Thank you to Kaila Yu and Crown Publishing for making this exchange possible. Her honesty adds new depth to how Fetishized invites us to think about visibility, power, and what it means to truly see ourselves.
You can read my full reflection on Fetishized here.
Fetishized is out now. You can find it through Amazon, Bookshop.org, and Libro.fm. or wherever you prefer to buy or listen.
