This isn’t the first time Chinese American athlete and Brooklyn Nets’ basketball star Jeremy Lin has talked about the underestimation of Asian American masculinity.
“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 in an interview in Mandarin to ESPN reporter Coral Lu on Sunday.
In the Brooklyn Nets’ 2017 Summer League, Lin spoke about NBA summer league standouts Zhou Qi (Houston Rockets) and Ding Yanyuhang (Dallas Mavericks), two athletes from mainland China.
“I’m very happy and hope they can perform well,” Lin said.
Back in April, Lin also spoke to YouTuber Kevin Kreider about Asian American stereotypes in sports and dating during a post-game Q&A.
“Me and John [Wall] were the fastest people in the [2010 NBA] draft,” Lin said. Wall was chosen as the No. 1 pick.
“He was athletic and I was ‘deceptively’ athletic,” Lin continued. “And I think I’ve been deceptively ‘whatever’ my whole life.”
Lin reflected in the interview on Sunday that “if we can have more Asian basketball players it will help our masculinity a lot.”
Watch the full interview, in Mandarin, below:
