Growing up in North America as a person of color, I rarely saw myself reflected on screen.
The times I did manage to catch a glimpse of someone who looked like me, they were inevitably caricatures of human beings, full of stereotypes and devoid of personality. Every ethnic minority portrayed on television or in film seemed to be plucked from a list of two-dimensional stock characters. East Asian? Martial artist or nerd. African-American? Basketball player or criminal. Latino? Cleaner or sexpot. Arab? Belly dancer or terrorist.