Jeremy Lin Laments Asian-Americans Being 'Underestimated'
National Basketball Association (NBA) star Jeremy Lin recently spoke about how Asian-Americans tend to become underestimated especially when it comes to the field of sports in the United States.
The Brooklyn Nets point guard opened up about this during an interview with ESPN when asked about Chinese players Zhou Qi of Houston and Ding Yanyuhang, who will be trying for summer league this month.
"In the U.S., a lot of — doesn't matter if it's basketball players or people in other professions — they look at Chinese people or Asians and they surely will underestimate us," Lin said.
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"So I think if we can have more Asian basketball players it will help our masculinity a lot," he went on to say, adding "I'm very happy and hope they can perform well."
This is not the first time he spoke about this issue. He also appeared in a video with fitness activist Kevin Kreider, where they talked about how Asian and Asian-American men have always been portrayed as "not sexy, not good-looking" and are usually stereotyped as being good at math, science and making money.
Lin agreed and talked about the own personal share of the bias he had and still continues to go through as an Asian-American male in the basketball court. He recalled the NBA draft and how he was compared to John Wall of Washington Wizards.
"Me and John were the fastest people in the draft, but he was athletic and I was 'deceptively' athletic," Lin said. "I think I've been deceptively 'whatever' my whole life," he said.
The former New York Knicks player added that it feels like some Asian girls are going for non-Asian guys too, saying that Asian men are being viewed "differently."
Lin determined that if they, including himself, just continue to be themselves, "I think that the world will come around and appreciate us Asians."
