Talk:List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees

Asian
What qualifies as "Asian"? It should be people of Asian ancestry or descent. I don't consider any of those people who are listed as Asian Best Actresses to be Asian. Olivia de Havilland is 100% white. She was born in Tokyo but I'd hardly think she considers herself Asian. Merle Oberon and Vivien Leigh may have had some trace amount of Asian ancestry but I don't think anyone ever considered them Asian. Natalie Portman is Israeli-American. Although Israel is technically on the continent of Asia, I don't think anyone considers her to be Asian. Lastly, Keisha Castle-Hughes is Maori, which arguably might be considered "Asian" if you consider the term to encompass Pacific Islanders. --68.166.88.10 (talk) 18:03, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

What an ignorant and wholly incorrect article I have stumbled upon. This article claims to offer a list of "Asian Academy Award winners and nominees", but is instead bloated with mainly white actors and actresses who have a dubious, minute trace of Asian ancestry. Vivian Leigh!? Are you serious? Her mom didn't even know what she was made up of; but that's good enough to qualify her as "ASIAN" and stick her on a list of ASIANS!? This is totally ridiculous, unworthy of an encyclopedia, and furthermore, a detriment in that it misrepresents the true makeup of Asians in Hollywood, which in reality is minimal. Disappointed.Paerra (talk) 04:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above posters. While Merle Oberon and Vivien Leigh are arguable, Keisha Castle-Hughes should really be taken off the list. Pacific Islanders are not Asian. I think the same goes for Natalie Portman and people of Middle Eastern descent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.130.19.174 (talk) 01:39, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

"What qualifies as 'Asian'"? Not an easy question to answer. We can be strict about it, and include the traditional "East Asian" countries (China, Japan, Korea, etc.), but for the purposes of racial studies, discussion and research, "Asian" in a larger, general sense (certainly from an American perspective), includes that which is defined at the top of this article. Pacific Islanders do belong in this group. Those with partial/multi/bi-racial Asian heritage, as with African Americans, are also included. The features may not be as distinguishable as with African features, but does that then make it insignificant? Olivia de Havilland has been removed, more than once. People keep wanting to add her. The same with Natalie Portman. Keisha Castle-Hughes was removed, then added back. Etc. This is wikipedia, and there are many different opinions about the matter. It is said above "Although Israel is technically on the continent of Asia, I don't think anyone considers her to be Asian." What a contradiction. "Technically" is exactly what "qualifies" (to answer the opening question). What people "consider" is where you get into debates. TienTao (talk) 01:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * PLEASE READ: I have clarified the article summary, and it is much easier to understand the qualifications now. In order be on the list, you must, MUST, have Asian ANCESTRY. It doesn't matter if you're Iranian or Chinese or Siberian or Indian, as long as part pf your ancestry belongs in the continental group of Asia (thus justifying the existence of Vivien Leigh and Yul Brynner's names on the list). However, in the cases of Liv Ullmann, Joan Fontaine and Natalie Portman--they were born in Asia, but there is no documented or sourced information that would indicate that their parents or grandparents and so on were in fact Asians (Asians in the continental sense). So there you go. Citizenship is a no, but heritage or ancestry is a yes. This list is not intended to be a racial thing. Asia is a very diverse region. If you want to add to the list and think we missed one, please cite if you can, or post here in the discussion if you're unsure. - Lhw1 (talk) 15:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * It's still not entirely clear to me. First of all, it reads " ... this list recognizes Asia as a continental entity, and not as a racial entity".  So far, so good.  It has nothing to do with race.
 * But the following words reveal that it has everything to do with race, but just not any one specific race. So, Liv Ullmann is out because she was merely born in Asia, but has no Asian "blood".  But a person born in London, a long way from the "continental entity" of Asia, but of Chinese, Indian, Iranian, whatever parents, would qualify.
 * The wording has to be fixed to make this clear. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  19:05, 1 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Agreed. In fact, most of this paragraph seems either contradictory or redundant. The first paragraph covers it: people "who have Asian ancestry, including" all of Asia. The clarifications seem like they're talking to editors, which I don't think is appropriate for the main article, although I sympathize with the desire to head off arguments. Eostrom (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2012 (UTC)


 * rescope The current scope of this article is terrible. It should be confined to people who are citizens or nationals of countries in Asia. It should not be based on race, and should not include Americans who simply have chinese parents (one could create an Asian-Americans list if desired for that).--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:48, 18 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Since this article pertains to Asian-Americans, Middle Easterners should not be on here at all. However, if we're going to include them, it is absurd and arguably racist to say that Natalie Portman and others like her should be excluded. These people who argue that Jews like Portman are not "really" Asian should read up on Jewish history, basic ethnology, and perhaps a genetic study or two.Evildoer187 (talk) 19:45, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Israelis are really Asian, however, as far as Portman is concerned, although she was born in Israel her parents' jewish heritage comes from Poland and Russia, respectively, so she is thoroughly ethnically European as far as her ancestry is concerned. Rcul4u998 (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

Yul Brynner is not fucking Asian. The "Mongol" connection has no basis at all. And including Arnon Milchan, an Israeli, is kind of bullshit. With that logic, how is Natalie Portman "not Asian"?

Why is natalie portman still on this list? Her grandparents were ethnically european. If you look up the definition of "Asian" in any major source (including wikipedia) you can see that the word asian means a number of different things in different anglophone nations, but none of those definitions would include Natalie Portman. I have yet to find any source that defines the word "asian" as "a person born in the continent of asia". So if you want to call this page "list of academy award winners and nominees who were born in asia", then sure. But if you use the word "asian" then you have to adhere to the actual english definition of that word.

Furthermore, there was actually a major controversy in 2018 when she played a character who was Asian in the original novels, and as such the producers were accused of whitewashing. Just typing "Natalie Portman Asian" into google gives dozens of reputable primary sources where she is specifically referred to as not asian, and indeed is herself quoted saying various things on the topic that clearly indicate that she does not consider herself Asian. I have yet to find any source that describes her as being "asian" other than this page itself. TheStatistor (talk) 06:32, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

- What's your point? Are you only following America's definition of Asian which excludes people from Western Asia and anyone from Asia whose not East Asian, South Asian and or Southeast Asian? And because many Americans would not consider her as being "Asian American"? The lede says the list includes people with citizenship to Asian countries. There's a separate page for what you're talking about, of which Natalie isn't included for obvious reasons. In regards to this page, Natalie Portman was born in an Asian country and holds citizenship to said Asian country (Israel). Israel is still included on various Wiki lists/pages of Asian countries, so she has every right to be included on this page. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)


 * To be fair to the clarification in the lede was only added after they had posted their edit. I only added the lede clarifications to this page and to the one on List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent in November 2020 as there were constant changes made (mainly reg Natalie Portman) without there being a concise system who actually belongs to what. I just used my definitions from my thread below Talk:List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees - if it's the right defintion I don't know and am open to discussion. To me it makes sense and at least gives a clear and consistent standard for the time being.Milkyjoeboosh (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion either way but if Natalie Portman is going to be included for her nomination for Closer then she should also be included for her Lead Actress nominations including a WIN for Black Swan and her nomination for Jackie. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hatramroany (talk • contribs) 19:38, 15 March 2021 (UTC)


 * 100% agree. Unfortunatly, the lists are not complete. If you have time, please feel free to add.Milkyjoeboosh (talk) 12:50, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Academy Awards which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 13:19, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

In reference to discussion above, regarding Asian Ancestry...
I know this was mentioned above, but if Merle Oberon is included in this list, Vivien Leigh should be as well, considering Oberon's maternal heritage is just as obscure, and Leigh likely has just as much Asian ancestry as Oberon. I definitely don;t think a claim can be made for people who were born on the Asian continent but had no definitive, documented ethnic Asian ancestry, Such as Portman, de Haviland, and Joan Fontaine. But I don't think a wikipedia is in a position to decide for ourselves who gets to claim their Asian ancestry, no matter how small it may seem to us, and who does not get to do so. Rcul4u998 (talk) 21:31, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

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Ugh another Wikipedia article that goes out of its way to claim that Taiwanese people are really Chinese
Why can't articles just stick to the topic and not try to be another mouthpiece for the PRC's political agenda?

Why can't articles just identify people the way they self-identify? Yes, some Taiwanese people are of recent Chinese descent, some are of very ancient Chinese descent, and some are of aboriginal descent. But what does that have to do with the topic of this article?

Why is it that with Taiwanese people, their ancient family tree is more relevant to this article than where their families have lived for the past few centuries? Why isn't that important for Asians from any other countries? ExplainToMeWhy (talk) 17:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

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Distinguishing the 2 articles on "Asian" vs "Asian descent" re Academy Award winners/nominees
Next to this article "Asian Academy win/nom", there's also another article "Academy win/nom of Asian descent". And there seems to be quite a disagreement amongst contributors as to who's eligible for which or isn't as some people get regularly added and removed.

To my understanding the difference between both articles is nationality vs ehtnicity(UK)/race(US). Simply put: To be eligible for "Asian" you need citizenship of an Asian country regardless of your ethnicity, for "Asian descent" you are part of an ethnic group regardless of your nationality. You might be part of both groups but don't necessarily have to. Place of birth is not an indicator.
 * Nationality: e.g. German, Cambodian, Australian, Canadian, Peruvian etc.
 * Ethnic group: e.g. white/European/Caucasian, black/African-American/Jamaican/Carribean/Black British, Asian/Asian British, Aeab/Middle-Eastern, Native Americans etc.

Examples for "Asian" nom/win would be:
 * Ismael Merchant (Indian nationality)
 * Bong Joon-Ho (South Korean nationality)
 * Ang Lee (Taiwanese nationality)
 * Natalie Portman (dual Israeli and US citizenship) => she seems to be one of the most contested getting constantly removed and readded. However Oren Moverman who is of Israeli-American nationality and was nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 2009 seems to be of no issue. The same holds true for the Israeli actor Topol who was of Ashkenazi Jew descent (like Portman) but is listed in the Asian article (but Portman hasn't been). Just saying.

BUT NOT:
 * Meg Tilly (only Canadian citizenship - at least to my knowledge)
 * Olivia de Havilland (only born in Japan, no citizenship)

Examples for "Asian descent" nom/win would be:
 * Ismael Merchant (Indian descent)
 * Bong Joon-Ho (Korean descent)
 * Ang Lee (Chinese descent)
 * Dev Patel (Indian descent)
 * Meg Tilly (Half-Chinese descent)
 * Hailee Steinfeld (Filipino descent via her maternal grandfather who was of half-Filipino descent)

BUT NOT:
 * Natalie Portman (Ashkenazi Jew descent)

Currently there's absolutely no concept who's listed in which article. Ang Lee, for example, is listed under "Asian" with two films for Best Picture, but only with one of them under "Asian descent". Then again, he listed with three movies for Best Director under "Asian descent" but with none under "Asian". The same for Bong Jong-Ho: he is eligible for "Asian" in the Best Picture category but not for Best Director, on the other hand he's eligible for "Asian descent" for Best Director but not for Best Picture. This makes absolutely no sense - either they're of Asian descent/Asian for all their films or none. As descibed above, Natalie Portman is contested to be eligible for "Asian" due to her European descent (aka "looks") despite Israeli citizenship, but Oren Moverman and Topol are listed under "Asian" despite looking just as European as Portman. Ismael Merchant is listed in the "Asian" article, but not in the "Asian descent" one. On the other hand, I'm not sure if some people list under "Asian" are actually eligible (at least acc. to my def): Ben Kingsley and Dev Partel only seem to be British (their Wikipedia page don't show dual citizenship - it might be, though, that they have. Wikipedia is not allknowing... ;)

My questions would be:
 * 1) Would it be helpful if the articles contained a short description as to what is meant by "Asian nom/win" and "nom/win of Asian descent"? In the hope that this might reduce the constant removal/readding of people? Just to clarify: It doesn't have to be my definition from above, which might be completely wrong, but any defintion contributors can agree upon would be an improvement in my opinion.

Milkyjoeboosh (talk) 03:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * 1) Is it possible to form a "task force" to discuss the definition to come to a broad agreement? Where? Here, on the TalkPage? (I'm quite new to Wikipedia so please forgive if this question sounds stupid).
 * Perhaps the best solution would be to merge this list article into List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent, so we wouldn't need to distinguish between people who are Asian and of Asian-descent. There's so much overlap already, and this would obviate many questions about inclusion. &mdash; Myasuda (talk) 21:59, 4 December 2021 (UTC)


 * That's what I'm starting to think, too. Nowadays, you have to be a genealogist and historian to be able to edit the two articles and distinguish between them... (e.g. my gut tells me that Hayek and Cher only belong to the Asian descent article, not this article due to their lack of Libanese and Armenian nationality (at least according to their Wikipedia pages) - it's probably the same for Leigh and Oberon regardless of them being born in British Raj as they were of British nationality, not British-Indian nationality but then again I'm no historian). As far as I know there was only one article to begin with (at least when I made my first edit in 2018), but somehow the topic who is/isn't Asian was very contentious (well, still is) and then it was split in two articles with people fiercly fighting over edits. That's when I tried to clear the waters with the definition in the ledes - not that people seemed to care, anyway, apart from, sigh. If the two articles continue to exist, maybe the citizenship status should match with the citizenship status listed on a person's Wiki page so as to at least achieve intra-Wikipedia congruency... Milkyjoeboosh (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Merger request
Proposal to merge this article with List of Academy Award winners and nominees of Asian descent per WP:REDUNDANT. Despite the clear distinction in title, based on the similarity of material present it seems the distinction doesn't hold as much value as may appear. While the latter does exclude some questionable entries, e.g. Angelina Jolie (who received honorary Cambodian citizenship several years after her Oscar win), I'm not really sure I see the point. QuietHere (talk) 02:03, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film, Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Asia. QuietHere (talk) 02:13, 14 March 2023 (UTC)


 * According to the lead, the list "does not consider ethnicity and includes Academy Award winners who do not claim Asian ancestry or ethnicity" which alone in itself seems completely nonsensical to me, and even more so after having a look at the article's content. I would support only keeping those who are/were citizens of countries in Asia. Coconutyou3 (talk) 09:30, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Limiting to citizenship only seems overstrict to me. You'd be excluding e.g. the American-born Daniel Kwan and Jonathan Wang who just won Best Picture the other night, or British Indian Best Actor winner Ben Kingsley, while still including Jolie based on her honorary citizenship. QuietHere (talk) 04:10, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's my understanding that the main reason why the pages were split up is because of never ending debate on who exactly counts as being "Asian", which is an extremely arbitrary term given how the boundaries between "Europe" and "Asia" are socially constructed as opposed to irrefutable geography. I'm fine with the page being a pan-Asian (including descent and or citizenship) one. Seems like the best solution. If we only include citizenship to an Asian country then you exclude a bunch of Asian descent people. If we go by Asian ancestry then it once again raises debate on who counts on being "Asian", especially for Asians who do not look typically "Asian" (i.e - non-East Asian ancestry/Eurocentric features) by common connotations on who is "Asian". That hypothetical list would likely be extremely short.
 * Some sources do acknowledge the technicality of people like Natalie, Salma Hayek, Cher, Vivien Leigh and so on all being "Asian", as well as Merle Oberon's Asian origins despite denying her heritage while alive. So should every actress nominated but Michelle Yeoh be excluded?
 * Having a separate ancestry page simply for a few exceptions when this page probably mentions everyone else in said ancestry page is redunant. Clear Looking Glass (talk) 07:46, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Seriously very confusing to have two very similar lists just to accommodate some colonizing belief that anyone in the real world would consider someone with an honorary citizenship or a European who happened to be born in Asia and has never identified as Asian in their life should have a list just to justify an obsurd belief that the English speaking world is more diversified than it actually is.
 * I'm all about allowing for a big tent definition of including Pacific Islanders as the two have been linked in America for so long, those who are only a quarter or an eighth Asian, or even Caucasians from the Asian Caucasus (who tend to identify more as European than Asian themselves and a stretch), but do we really need two lists just so Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman can be included on one? Matsujima (talk) 00:01, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Matsujima - What "colonizing beliefs" are you talking about? As I'm sure you know, the border between Europe and Asia are arbitrary and the idea of who "counts" as being "Asian" varies depending on who you ask and what country you're from. To Americans it often means East Asians. To the British, it just means South Asians. And countries like Canada have a pan-Asian census definition. The two aforementioned Asian regions are ethnically/culturally distinct and the differing definitions on "Asianness" show how nebulous it is to lump extremely diverse peoples under one umbrella term. Some source do acknowledge people like Angelina Jolie, Cher, Natalie Portman or Vivien Leigh as being technically "Asian".
 * Furthermore, if you're talking about the "real world" and identity, then Merle Oberon shouldn't count as "Asian" despite the numerous reliable sources that acknowledge her as being the "first" Asian actress nominated or the many definitions that would undoubtedly count her confirmed ancestry as "Asian". All because she purportedly concealed her Asian ancestry while she was alive.
 * I don't know what you mean by the world being more "diversified", but if we only go by the United States narrow definition of who is considered "Asian", as well as people who are widely considered by the media to be "Asian" and self-identified as such, than you'd only have Michelle Yeoh in the Best Actress section and a small handful of other people. It seems like the pages were originally split due to debate on who exactly would count as being "Asian", which as mentioned (like many ethnic/racial/nationality-related terms), is entirely arbitrary.
 * To me, I would support merging the pages to just the List of Asian Academy Award Winners and nominees. Browsing both pages, it seems like everyone on the Asian ancestry page is already listed here. And there are some sources that note the technicality of West Asians and Indian-born Vivien Leigh as being "Asian". Clear Looking Glass (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * To me, I would support merging the pages to just the List of Asian Academy Award Winners and nominees. Browsing both pages, it seems like everyone on the Asian ancestry page is already listed here. And there are some sources that note the technicality of West Asians and Indian-born Vivien Leigh as being "Asian". Clear Looking Glass (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * To me, I would support merging the pages to just the List of Asian Academy Award Winners and nominees. Browsing both pages, it seems like everyone on the Asian ancestry page is already listed here. And there are some sources that note the technicality of West Asians and Indian-born Vivien Leigh as being "Asian". Clear Looking Glass (talk) 07:25, 27 March 2023 (UTC)