On many forms in the UK where ethnicity needs to be ticked, the space for East and South East Asia is 'Chinese or Any Other Asian'. This represents a shameful sweeping together of a vastly varied heritage and experience. ESEA people have lived and worked in the UK for centuries, and yet this influence is often overlooked, and even ignored.

The same goes for the unique form of racism experienced by people of ESEA heritage. ESEA women are exoticized and sexualised, Asian food is mocked as unhealthy and our restaurants as dirty, our culture is appropriated, we are assumed to be the nanny of our mixed-race children, and we are blamed for the Covid-19 pandemic. All of this is often dismissed or downplayed because of the 'model minority' myth.