One of the few Asian faces I saw on screen as a kid was Tia Carrere’s. She played Cassandra Wong, the female protagonist in 1992 comedy Wayne’s World—something rare now but virtually unheard of at the time.
Growing up, her character strongly resonated with me. That, combined with the fact that creator Mike Myers is a hometown hero (we’re both from Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto), inspired me to write my very first piece for New York Magazine‘s The Cut: an ode to Cassandra.