Keiko agena ethnicity
Yet unlike other women on the show, who claim their Blackness now and then, Leilene has never once mentioned her Asian background. I have been there for sure, and I know many other Asian American women have as well. Mo'Nique teaches them valuable lessons that many women could also learn from, including "Check Thyself Before Thou Wreck Thyself" and "Thou Shalt Work What Thou Art Working With." Part of me identifies with Leilene – there are times when it’s evident how hard it is for her to really speak up and assert herself. In contrast to the Flavor of Love series, which merely exploited these women for their sexuality, lack of good judgment, and tacky outfits, Charm School seems truly invested in helping them improve their self-esteem and empowering them to take control of their lives in positive, meaningful ways. Surprisingly, that’s what the show is really about. She is a real Asian American woman, in all her complexities, and more than that, it seems like she has become genuinely devoted to self-improvement. She is not afraid to show weakness (having a meltdown when the challenge involves cooking) or strength (selling her mom's wedding ring to a thrift store during a challenge as a show of closure about her mom's death and saying something along the lines of, "If it will make one person happy, it's worth it."). She knows when to sit down (when she could barely comprehend debating concepts) and when to stand up (using her sexuality to sell perfume on the street).
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When she screams, "I'm a damn good mother!" after Larissa questions the example she sets for her children by stripping, those tears in her eyes are real.
#KEIKO AGENA ETHNICITY TV#
She is even an anomaly among Asian American reality TV stars - more depth than Real World San Diego's Jamie Chung, more heart than Real World San Francisco's Pam, and more natural than America's Next Top Modelbot April. Count how many Asian American stereotypes she busts in just those five sentences: 1) ballet dancer (with parent's approval!) 2) high school drop out 3) exotic dancer/stripper 4) broken marriage 5) single mother I dig Leilene because she shows us something we don't normally see on TV – a complicated, low-income, non-immigrant-success-story Asian American woman who isn't the overachieving workaholic (ahem, Christina Yang), the ditzy chatterbox (Kelly Kapoor), the ballbusting dragon lady (Lucy Liu on Ally McBeal), or the mousy nerd (Keiko Agena Gilmore Girls). Hoping to "quit the pole," Leilene hopes that Charm School will help her find self-confidence and emotional strength. Now a single mother in Las Vegas, she provides for her family with the tips she's earned in strip clubs. For a brief period she was a happily married woman with three small children, until her husband left her for another woman. Her years of training would later benefit her career as an exotic dancer when she dropped out of high school after tenth grade. Worried she was becoming too much of a tomboy, Leilene's mother enrolled her in ballet classes and she eventually attend the National Ballet School. One contestant who caught my eye on this show was 25-year-old Las Vegan Smiley (neé Leilene Ondrade), who, according to her Charm School bio, was raised by her grandfather "on a farm in the Filipinas (sic)" selling tomatoes and fishing for frogs.
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So of course I am a fan of the newest spin-off, Flavor of Love: Girls Charm School, where Flav's cast-offs are "rigorously trained in proper etiquette and manners before competing in challenges to determine their poise and grace under pressure" and overseen by task-mistress and former Showtime at the Apollo host Mo'Nique. I watched every pec-laden moment of I Love New York and eagerly anticipate the ( new and improved) season two. I admit I have been hooked on the whole VH1 Flavor of Love franchise, from the first season with the infamous spitting incident to the second season's notorious defecation act (obviously these shows are all about class).