Our favorite onscreen Asian American moms
In honor of Mother's Day, here are some iconic Asian American matriarchs to grace both the big and small screens
From left, Evelyn Wang of "Everything Everywhere All at Once," Nisha Shah of "Master of None," Yuki Ishii-Peters of "Pen15," and Nalini Vishwakumar of "Never Have I Ever."
Photos courtesy of A24, Netflix, and Hulu; Graphic by Ryan Quan
Words by Andy Crump
As one of JoySauce’s resident token caucasians, I don’t have a great deal of context for what it is like growing up with a mother of Asian descent—my own mom had Sicilian roots. The closest encounters I had with Asian moms include middle school and hanging out with an Indian American classmate whose grandmother hugged me with maternal warmth that matched my own grandmother’s, and talking to a friend in my adulthood about how quickly his Korean mom reached for the cast iron skillet when he or his siblings stepped out of line. These are anecdotal experiences, though, rather than a topography of Asian American motherhood.
Happily, film and television have opened windows for me into those experiences, and countless others, and allowed me to build my own bridges connecting commonalities of Italian American and Asian American lives. For Mother’s Day, as JoySauce toasts some of our favorite movie and TV mothers for the occasion, we hope to open windows for you, our readers, as well.
Mom, Bao (2018)
Pixar tagged Domee Shi’s lovely short film to Incredibles 2, and frankly made a better case for paying the price of admission. Food metaphors have universal power; most folks have at least one strong sense memory tied to a favorite dish, whether it’s baozi (steamed buns) or not. The buns provide Shi an avenue for dramatizing her lead character’s (Sindy Lau) empty nester struggles. When magical realism brings to life one bun out of a freshly made batch, the nameless mom happily raises the plump little darling as her own, and goes through the inevitable cycle of clamping on too tight to the child as he grows older. The effect is bittersweet, but with the emphasis on “sweet.”
Mrs. Kim, Gilmore Girls (2000-16)
Emily Kuroda’s portrayal of the most ferocious mother figure in a series built on a foundation of them is contentious. Mrs. Kim is the “tiger mom” stereotype made flesh; for all intents and purposes, she denies her daughter, Lane (Keiko Agena), a full, rich childhood by dint of her endless ordinances and rules. But—and this is a big “but” for folks who find her triggering—when situations are dire, Mrs. Kim comes through for Lane: she’s present, supportive, and more respectful of boundaries than one would anticipate. By the time the series winds down, she and Lane have grown, and grown closer. Hers may be one of the best-realized arcs in the entire series.
Evelyn Quan Wang, Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), like Mrs. Kim, reflects certain stereotypes of Asian mothers as overbearing and hyper-critical of their children, perhaps their daughters most of all. But the directing duo Daniels play around with those stereotypes through the basic conceit of Everything Everywhere All at Once: out of every universe where Evelyn carries on wildly different lives (and occasionally in wildly different bodies, including one where she’s a rock), the version of Evelyn we’re introduced to in the movie—being the greatest failure among all possible iterations—is the one with the most potential. She could be a movie star. She could be a chef tag-teaming the kitchen with the racoon she stows under her toque. She could even have hot dogs for fingers. Most of all, she could be exactly the mom that her daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu), needs at the precise moment she needs her.
Jessica Huang, Fresh Off the Boat (2015-20)
Are we picking up on a theme here? American media tends to play in the same sandbox when developing Asian American mothers as characters on TV and in the movies; their conception on the page is frequently structured on clichés about their humorlessness, strictness, and straight-up ruthlessness. Jessica Huang (Constance Wu) isn’t not those things, but Wu’s performance weaves self-defeating hubris within these other traits. Jessica is absolutely a Panthera tigris mate. She’s also her own worst enemy. Wu taps into that detail with no small amount of glee, effectively weaponizing stereotypes for comedy’s sake.
Nai Nai, The Farewell (2019)
Nitpickers might cry foul about this entry: “She’s the grandmother of the movie’s main character!” Yes but, as they say in French, mange mon short. Nai Nai (Zhao Shu-zhen) is Billi’s (Awkwafina) mother’s (Diana Lin) mother. She’s a mom! It just so happens that she’s also grand. And yes, Nai Nai herself is not American, but The Farewell is an Asian American film, so we're counting her. One may cavil over the morality of convincing the whole family to pull the wool over their matriarch’s eyes about her failing health. Quibbles aside, we should all be so lucky in our twilight years to have children and grandchildren who love us so much that they’d rather spare us knowledge of our impending passage than see us live the rest of our days in anxiety. It takes a rare person to inspire deception on that scale.
Nalini Vishwakumar, Never Have I Ever (2020-23)
There’s a lived-in quality to Poorna Jagannathan’s routine banter and bickering with Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, the star of Mindy Kaling’s Netflix comedy Never Have I Ever. To a point, this is unexceptional, given that Kaling roots the narrative in some of her own childhood experiences. That context sets the expectation that any mother-daughter arguments that erupt from episode to episode should feel natural. But Jagannathan’s chemistry with Ramakrishnan, and the rest of the cast, is exceptional, and facilitated by how firmly she stands in Nalini’s shoes: she doesn’t “play” the character as much as she “understands” her and embodies that understanding in everything she does on screen.
Yuki Ishii-Peters, Pen15 (2019-21)
Quite possibly the most robust character on this list, aided in no small part by Pen15 creator and star Maya Erskine’s brilliant decision to wrap an entire episode around her in the show’s second season. (Turns out that being the showrunner’s mother helps.) Yuki Ishii-Peters (Mutsuko Erskine), like the majority of the moms mentioned here, is experienced by the audience with a winnowed perspective: we see and understand her through the eyes of her daughter (also named Maya, in keeping with Pen15’s semi-autobiographical bent). She’s stern, much like her Asian maternal peers. She’s compassionate, too. Maya’s perspective nonetheless renders her two-sided, for better and worse, until season two cedes a whole 30 minutes to Matsuko Erskine’s performance—when we finally get to see her as multi-dimensional, dignified, and utterly, recognizably human.
Nisha Shah, Master of None (2015-21)
Fatima Ansari, like Matsuko Erskine, enjoys the distinction of being a showrunner’s mother. Apparently, that responsibility wasn’t enough to skip the casting process; she and her husband Shoukath Ansari both had to audition to play their son Aziz’s parents. They had a clear edge, of course, and so they made their first appearances in Master of None’s second episode, “Parents,” in which the pair stole the show and audience’s hearts by being their authentic selves in front of the camera. There is simultaneously naiveté and professionalism to Fatima’s work. She doesn’t quite know how to be “her” while being filmed, but because she can’t not be her, the lack of guile enhances her self-portaiture as Nisha.
Literally the whole cast of The Joy Luck Club (1993)
Honestly, you could populate half of this list with the characters from Wayne Wang’s adaptation of Amy Tan’s seminal 1989 novel about Chinese American experience, and as much as you’d be lazy for doing so, you wouldn’t be wrong, either. The Joy Luck Club, 33 years after its release, remains a profound text about culture clashes by way of divergence for emigre families and their children. In the context of this list, it’s likewise a resonant dramatization of the mixed tension felt by mothers (Kieu Chinh, Tsai Chin, France Nuyen, Lisa Lu) watching their children grow into entirely different people than they’d envisioned under the influence of their adopted nation’s cultural mores.
Published on May 10, 2026
Words by Andy Crump
Bostonian culture journalist Andy Crump covers movies, beer, music, fatherhood, and way too many other subjects for way too many outlets, perhaps even yours: Paste Magazine, Inverse, The New York Times, Hop Culture, Polygon, and Men's Health, plus more. You can follow him on Bluesky and find his collected work at his personal blog. He’s composed of roughly 65 percent craft beer.
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is JoySauce's social media manager, associate editor, and all-around visual eye. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans, and check out his work on his website.