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I was raised in Kenya, and I always wanted to be an actor from when I was really, really little, but the first time I thought it was something that I could make a career of was when I watched 'The Color Purple.' I think I was nine, maybe, and I saw people that looked like me - Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah.

When I was in school, you never saw anyone who looked like us that was on TV. And that was really weird for me because there's so many people of South Asian descent in America - in the world.

I know when I was growing up in New York, whenever I turned on the television, I never saw a face that looked like me. Whenever there was an Asian person on television, it would be a huge event, me calling to my older sister 'There's an Asian person on television!' It was unheard of back then.

I think my sense of color I have got from my upbringing in Peru.

I grew up accepting that my nationality was not depicted on TV or film. To be honest, it was something I didn't acknowledge as a kid. But once I realized my love for acting and the possibility of pursuing a career in it, I quickly noticed the absence of Asians in general and thought, 'Well, I'm gonna try to change that.'

Growing up, I thought I was white. It didn't occur to me I was Asian-American until I was studying abroad in Denmark and there was a little bit of prejudice.

Growing up, I never saw Asian-Americans on TV at all.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

The first time I ever saw people of any color was when D-Day left from my hometown in England, to go and free Europe from the war. And there was every color you could imagine, and I'd not seen that in England.

I come from a mixed background - my mom's black, my dad's white - and I traveled around the world.