Following the 2021 release of her debut studio album, Sour, Olivia Rodrigo has established herself as one of the music industry’s youngest and brightest pop stars. With three Grammys to her name, a recently released sophomore album that’s topped the charts in 12 countries and an impending world tour set to begin in 2024, the Filipino American actress-singer continues to carve an impressive, history-making career at just 20 years old.
Since Rodrigo’s launch into superstardom, however, her ethnicity, or ethnic ambiguity in particular, has been the focus of much conversation. The Temecula, Calif., native was born to a German and Irish mom and a Filipino dad, making her mixed white and Asian, or “Wasian” — but despite being mixed race and warmly embraced by many Asian American creators online, others have criticized her for being “white passing.”
ok while y’all r being freaks abt olivia rodrigo white passing discourse all i’m gonna say is: being visibly mixed race does not make you white passing. it means you look PARTIALLY white. being visibly WASIAN doesn’t mean you look visibly WHITE. it’s just clear someone’s mixed.
— cam ⋆ SPOOKY TIME!!!!! 🎃 (@buzzkillgirls) September 20, 2023
Roman Vergini (@romansempire) took to TikTok to elaborate on the continued discourse surrounding Rodrigo’s ethnicity.
“I love this tweet that I saw that said, ‘Is Olivia Rodrigo “white passing” or have y’all just never seen a Wasian before?‘” Vergini said on Sept. 23. “I am half white and half Filipino, just like Olivia Rodrigo … and I feel like a lot of people don’t know what a Wasian looks like — that being half white, half Asian.”
Vergini revealed that the moment he saw Rodrigo, he “immediately” knew she was Wasian.
“[I] wasn’t sure what kind of Asian she was, but finding out she’s Filipino was like, ‘That makes perfect sense,‘” he said. “Filipino and white is such a common combination. I wasn’t surprised. She looks…
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