Jacklyn Keyser exemplifies much of what I love about half-Asian women. Of course, she is breathtakingly gorgeous (and she gogo dances!), but beyond that, she’s a bright girl (currently studying accounting) who successfully navigates the Asian/non-Asian dichotomy of her multicultural background.
She acknowledges her father’s northeastern U.S. roots, as she is a diehard fan of the Boston Red Sox and New England Patriots. But she also fully embraces her mother’s Japanese heritage: for instance, she can speak casual Japanese and is learning to speak formal Japanese, and she is a superfan of Sailor Moon (with a particular affinity for Sailor Jupiter) and the J-pop supergroup AKB48. Her home since age 8 has been San Diego, CA, but she spent six years of her early childhood in Japan and hopes to move back there again someday.
I’m a bit late on this but I thought it deserved a post: this video popped up on YouTube last month, to remind everyone just how awesome the K-Town reality show is going to be once it makes it on the air (it was apparently picked up by a network back in December).
The video gets interesting around the half minute mark, then it gets really interesting around the 45 second mark, courtesy of Jennifer Field and Violet Kim. Check it out after the jump.
“Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Nichole Bloom O’Connor made the transition to Los Angeles at 14 and is now a soon-to-be graduate from the University of Southern California where she studies theater and visual arts. As an actress she may be recognizable from her commercial work, and now Nichole will soon made her feature film debut in Project X, a new comedy directed by Nima Nourizadeh and produced by Todd Phillips.”
You might recognize her as Sarah from the recent “Magic Jingle Bob Barker” State Farm commercial. My favorite part of the ad is Nichole’s goofy laugh at the 18 second mark. Check it out:
She previously starred in a couple of 2007 McDonald’s commercials and a 2008 Honda Civic commercial. I’ve attached those to the end of this post (courtesy of YouTube user madcowe).
Note: I have no confirmation that she is half-Asian (other than my hapa-dar saying so), but based on her name and her look, my best guess is that she is Korean and Irish. Hopefully someone out there can confirm or correct this for me. (UPDATE: A commenter on this post has confirmed that Nichole is actually half Japanese and half Irish.)
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, the older daughter of “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” author Amy Chua, has started a blog in an ongoing quest to prove to everyone that she is normal despite her mother’s ultra-strict parenting.
We learn, amongst other things, that she is currently deciding between Harvard and Yale, that she may or may not watch Gossip Girl, and that her mom is an expert at ordering food at Chinese restaurants. And, she’s posted pictures that confirm that she is a total cutie.
Whenever I watch an American beauty pageant, I always keep an eye out for the representative from Hawaii. They’re always amongst the most beautiful of the contestants, and, not coincidentally, they’re often mixed Asian. For example, this year’s Miss Hawaii USA and Miss Hawaii Teen USA, Angela Byrd and Courtney Coleman, are both hapa.
Sonya Balmores Chung is another example. The actress/model/surfer (of Filipina, Irish, and Native American descent) was Miss Hawaii Teen USA in 2004, and placed first runner-up in the Miss Teen USA pageant that year. She later starred as Kai Kealoha in the TV series Beyond the Break, which aired on The N from 2006 to 2009, and she currently stars as Bethany Hamilton’s nemesis Malina Birch in the film Soul Surfer.
Posted in Pics on April 6th, 2011 by Jody – 1 Comment
Tessa Nicole Keller was the lead character on Season 3 of the MTV reality series Laguna Beach, assuming the narrator role that was held by Lauren Conrad in Season 1 and by Kristin Cavallari in Season 2.
I never saw a single episode of the show, but I remember seeing Tessa narrate the Season 3 preview on MTV, and I was surprised that instead of picking another dumb blonde to assume the lead role, they picked a beautiful Asian girl (Tessa is of Filipino, Irish, and German descent – some sources list her as having Chinese ancestry as well).
I really wasn’t able to find much info about Tessa online – just a few articles from several years back (see BuddyTV, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Laguna Beach Gossip blog). I’d be really curious to find out what she’s been up to since the show went off the air four years ago.
Perhaps Dana White has a thing for quapa girls? As president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, he’s managed to employ not one, but two gorgeous quarter-Asian ladies to be Octagon ring girls: Arianny Celeste and Logan Stanton.
Here is Logan Stanton’s description of her ethnicity, courtesy of her Twitter:
Logan debuted as an Octagon girl at UFC 92 in December 2008. She was considered by many people to be the most beautiful of the Octagon girls, but she was unexpectedly let go a year later, after UFC 107 (her contract expired and it was not renewed). She has since landed a number of modeling gigs, including Guess Jeans and Roxy Swimwear, as well as other photo shoots.
