More than two months after she left social media in the wake of racist and sexist trolling, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” star Kelly Marie Tran is speaking out about the experience. The actress, who is the first woman of color to star in a “Star Wars” pic, wrote about the shame and self-loathing her harassers caused her in a New York Times essay. She also vowed to never let anyone make her feel that way again.
“[The trolls’] words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me,” Tran recalls, “that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.”
The harassment resurrected a deep-seeded self-hatred Tran thought she had moved past. As a child, she internalized the racism of U.S. culture, even refusing to speak Vietnamese from the age of nine. Her parents absorbed those messages, too: they adopted American names that were easier to pronounce.
One of the worst parts of the online harassment, Tran writes, is knowing just how common it is. “This is what it is to grow up as a person of color in a white-dominated world. This is what it is to be a woman in a society that has taught its daughters that we are worthy of love only if we are deemed attractive by its sons,” she states. “This is the world I grew up in, but not the world I want to leave behind.”
Tran desires to “live in a world where children of color don’t spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white.” She continues, “I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings.”
Ultimately, Tran has decided that the best way to fight back against our culture’s racism and misogyny is to live her life with pride. She concludes her piece with a powerful declaration: “You might know me as Kelly. I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a ‘Star Wars’ movie. I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair. My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started.”
Tran received a Best Female Newcomer nod at this year’s UK Empire Awards for playing Rose Tico in “The Last Jedi.” Before “Star Wars,” she was best known for her digital shorts and the web series “Ladies Like Us.”
You can see Tran next in the Facebook Watch series “Sorry for Your Loss,” debuting September 18. The Kit Steinkellner-created drama follows a young widow, played by Elizabeth Olsen. Tran will also star in “Star Wars: Episode IX,” due out December 20, 2019.
