Nicky and the rest of the Shen family in Kung Fu are also strong Asian-American role models. “The way that we are portraying our community through this show is showing that we are not silent and we will not be made to feel like we are invisible,” Liang stated. “We don’t want to just be seen as this silent minority anymore. It’s time for us to speak up and use our voices.”
The recent rise in anti-Asian hate crimes has personally affected Liang, and as she described, made her even more empathetic to the experiences of other races as a whole.
“It made me so compassionate to the Black and Brown experiences because for the first time in my life, I was afraid that I would be hurt because of the way that I look,” Liang confessed. “I had never experienced that. It’s horrifying what’s going on, but…it has just opened my eyes so much more to the fact that as people of color in this country, we need to have dialogue together because there is a common experience that we all have and we need to stick together.”