- The flat face,
no eyes,
those types of things.
It would become a lot of jokes.
And I don't think I really
realized how harmful that was
to my self image until I was a lot older.
- Mosquito bites for breasts.
- It's always the first thing that people point out like,
"Oh, you're so short."
- And that's when I started realizing
that people were stereotyping Asians as like flatter.
I even heard like pancake syndrome
at one point.
For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
several women,
like myself,
are going to be modeling
and speaking about their body insecurities.
- My biggest physical insecurity probably has to be
a lot of my facial features.
The shape of my eyes.
My eyelids.
My eyelashes.
A lot of those things that are pretty common
in Eastern Asian American women,
are things that I've grown up
with a lot of insecurities about.
I think that media has a very
obviously Western perspective.
It's all about, you know, the,
the side profile and the sharp chiseled jaw.
A lot of those things are very antithetical
to Eastern Asian American characteristics.
- My biggest physical insecurity right now
is having a smaller chest size.
Going to Pakistani parties,
a lot of people focus a lot
on your body.
And, they'll either tell you,
"Oh! You look too skinny."
Or, "Oh, you gained some weight."
"You should lose some weight."
Like Pakistani community,
I mean, you're supposed to be covered up completely.
So I'll just wear something like a scarf over my chest.
Or, you have to be very modest.
You have to wear a potato sack
but you have to still look thin in it.
Growing up in that culture
where you're going to these parties,
and then, they're telling you to be skinny,
and then, you see social media in the Western world
and you're like, "Oh, I have to look like an hour glass."
And then, it's just a constant, like,
balancing act where you're just trying
to make everyone happy.
But then how about yourself?
- My biggest physical insecurity is my butt.
I'm always reminded on social media
that Americans really prefer like the fuller, rounder butt,
and I don't have that.
At times, I think I do feel like
I'm a little less beautiful.
Like I'll hop out of a shower and I'll see my butt
and I'm like,
it doesn't look like that WAP video I saw 30 seconds ago.
Being a Korean American, in general,
I usually have like a bit of an identity crisis,
just because the values are so different.
I find like when I'm in Korea,
I don't really pay attention to what my butt looks like
or how it, you know, how people see it.
But as soon as I come back here
I kind of become self-conscious about it again.
So, I think there is some tension.
- My biggest physical insecurity is definitely my height.
The biggest reaction I would get would be from strangers.
It's always the first thing that people point out like,
"Oh, you're so short."
If I don't make a joke out of it,
then I would just end up
feeling really, really bad about myself.
- I don't wear a lot of makeup on the daily
because certain things that you see
in common makeup culture, especially in America,
it's not suited for, you know, like Asian American eyes.
When I go out
I usually try to wear mascara at least,
or fake eyelashes.
- Social media has, you know, the Kardashians,
the fake boobs.
Just the feeding into body dysmorphia.
And that's just been a struggle for me.
These bras, that give you cleavage, like,
and that's all around my, like,
on Instagram, those are all my ads.
It's like they know that I have a flat chest.
They're like, "Oh, this makes you more of a woman."
And then you have that in your head where you're like,
okay, I'm not woman enough
because I don't have big boobs or a big chest.
So then I have social media on one end
and then I have the looking modest,
you know, like my Pakistani parties on the other end.
- And like, I've looked at all
of those like YouTube videos
with like how to get a big butt in five minutes.
So the only option for me was hiding it.
I'll usually wear like oversized tees
or hoodies to just cover my behind.
- There is an issue with infantilization
to the point where there have been situations
where I am literally treated like a child.
I am dismissed.
I'm not taken seriously.
Or, if I get heated up
by something that was rude or disrespectful
then I get brushed off as just fiery.
Being short
and coupled with just me being an Asian woman,
there is a constant need
to work even harder to try to prove myself
or be heard, be noticed and not be dismissed.
I am normally alone in those photos,
so that, like, when you zoom in,
it looks like I'm very, very tall. (laughs)
- To be honest, I'm actually really nervous. (laughs)
The thought of it is actually making my back
and my hands sweat a bit.
- [Angela] I want to convey that
you can be just as beautiful without makeup.
You know, I don't usually take photos
of myself without makeup,
unless it's just for a really quick Snapchat or something.
At first, definitely,
I didn't want to look like directly at the camera.
I was a little bit shy at first
but, definitely I got way more confident.
- It felt super weird not wearing anything.
I was (exclaims) I'm exposed.
It felt kind of also freeing in a sense.
Like I just was myself
and I just, there was some sort of comfort to it, for sure.
Because this is me.
I'm not changing myself.
I'm not,
you know, conforming to any sort of societal norm.
Like that's just me.
And I think people should see who I really am.
- [InSeong] Honestly, it was a lot more fun
than I expected.
I was super, super nervous at first,
but I had people hyping me up
for the very thing that I was the most insecure about.
So that was so awesome.
And the fact that my insecurity was the focal point.
I think,
it really made me feel like,
damn, it's really time to just accept myself
for the way that I am.
Pretty uncomfortable, at first,
not gonna lie.
Especially when I actually had to turn around
and the focal point
or the emphasis point was my butt
and my butt alone.
Honestly, I don't know what to expect
from the photos yet.
But, I'm really looking forward to seeing these pictures
in a few days.
- It definitely felt really weird not having heels on
since I'm just not used to being in front of the camera.
So this definitely changed all of that for me.
- Oh my gosh, the photos.
I like them a lot.
I actually like them a lot more
than I thought I was going to.
I can't even tell that I'm not wearing makeup.
That's not really what you see when you look at it.
You kind of see, you know,
my smiles and how confident I look
in the moment.
I wish someone told me
that
social media is sometimes your worst enemy.
You can't pay attention to this Western media
because it's so ethnocentric in what it portrays.
And, it doesn't take into account, you know,
the differences
and the beauties that each different ethnicity has.
I promise, like, if you're confident in yourself
and you think that you're beautiful,
you're gonna look beautiful no matter what.
I think makeup is a beautiful tool
for you to feel confident in yourself.
When I wear it,
I'm not wearing it so that other people can think
I'm beautiful necessarily.
And I think moving forward,
it's definitely going to be more, I'm wearing it for me.
And it's more to accentuate the things about myself,
not to hide them
or to change what they look like.
I've actually never seen myself in this light.
I think it,
I'm so surprised.
I usually feel like I'm not very photogenic.
It took me a little while to,
like at the beginning,
I was like, kind of covered, you know,
I was just kind of worried about like exposing myself
and like, you know,
just like very self-conscious.
But, near the end
I felt a little more confident
and I felt, you know a little better about myself.
Now, I kind of showed like who I am as a person.
And now people can kind of see that
and see my unique features
and see like who I actually am
without covering myself,
or, you know,
wearing certain things to boost myself up.
I think the biggest thing I'm going to change
about myself, in that sense, is not overthinking what I post
and not saying, "Oh, I have to change this."
I have to make myself look bigger here
or smaller here.
Like comparing myself to influencers.
Just comparing myself to myself and who I am.
- I don't know if I'm ready to see these.
Honestly, they look really nice.
What? I wasn't expecting this.
Butt doesn't even look that bad.
It's way beyond my expectations.
I'm so happy with this.
If I can appreciate my butt now,
and other people can appreciate my butt,
then I should just flaunt it loud and proud.
You know, in a nutshell,
I have so much more to offer
than just my butt.
The best piece of advice that I heard was,
treat yourself Like you would treat your best friend.
So, that's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna treat my butt like my best friend.
- These are completely
just not what I expected (laughs)
like at all.
I felt like during the shoot,
it was pretty effortless.
I didn't have to do much.
So, for them to turn out like this,
I'm just, I don't know how it happened- (laughs)
I'm not someone who normally subscribes to be like
in the foreground.
So this is a huge, huge change.
You know, at some point in their lives,
everyone should be the hero of their own stories
(calm music)