There's an incredible moment at the start of the second season of Friends. Ross has just walked off the plane after spending time in China for work, and Rachel is waiting for him with flowers because she's realized she might have feelings for him. She sees him, smiles hopefully, then immediately freezes because Ross walks off the plane with another woman and kisses her.

That character's name was Julie. She was a paleontologist who went to college with Ross and they reunited while on the trip. She was smart and had funny lines and wore the same cool 90s clothes the other characters wore. She was also of Chinese descent.

In 1995, in a show whose lead cast was all white in a city that was supposed to be diverse, seeing Lauren Tom on network television with a speaking role--no accent, no "Asian stereotypes"--was significant. The first time the character of Julie appeared was the season 1 finale, and her character continued on for a six-episode arc through the second season.

All of this is made even more significant when you think about what else was happening on primetime television at the time: Margaret Cho's All-American Girl had just gone off air in March of 1995 after a tumultuous run and what would later be revealed to be a clash between network executives and the creative vision of the show. All-American Girl was not a perfect show, but it also was never given the chance to be what it could have been.

Two months after the last episode of All-American Girl aired on ABC, Julie showed up on Friends and recurred through the rest of the year.

I saw the episode for the first time in syndication a few years later, when I was old enough to start watching and appreciating Friends. I'd only seen commercials for the show before, but never really tuned in until I saw Lauren Tom on TV and stopped flipping the channels. I remember pointing her out to my mom: "Look! She's Asian and she's just playing a regular girl."

I was in awe. The show didn't put her in a kimono or cast her as a karate master or manicurist or nurse. She didn't have an accent. She was from America. She had funny lines. She seemed nice.

All of those attributes, of course, are another type of "Asian stereotype" (the nice, quiet "model minority"), but in the context of seeing that kind of character on Friends played by a Chinese American actress was an important moment. From her character's backstory and role, you can see that the writers didn't set out to create a storyline about "Ross' Asian girlfriend." They wrote a storyline about yet another roadblock to Ross and Rachel's relationship; the woman they cast in the role just happened to be Asian, but they never made her character about her ethnicity. (The most was the first moments of Julie's on-screen appearance when Rachel says loudly to her, "Welcome to our country!" and Julie responds back, as loud, "Thank you! I'm from New York!")

Watching Lauren Tom on Friends for that brief storyline made me think that I could be an actress if I wanted to. It was an ambition that my mom and sister were careful to warn me would be too difficult of a fight--not because they wanted to discourage me, but because they wanted to protect me. Of course, I know now how difficult that is--especially in an industry that doesn't always look ready for diversity. Asian actors and actresses get shut out for lead roles, or they get asked to play caricatures. Or, they don't even get cast in roles "meant" for Asian actors.

I've heard the argument turned around before--that if Asians want to see themselves represented in Hollywood, then more Asians should try to become actors and actresses and writers and directors. But that argument ignores the barriers in the industry that have historically prevented minorities from succeeding and rising into leadership roles where they can effect change. Check out this People Magazine article from 1996 that looked at African-American representation in Hollywood, which observed that only 3.9% of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 5,043 members were black; only 2.3% of the Directors Guild and 2.6% of the Writers Guild membership were black. And African-Americans made up less than 2% of Local 44--a 4,000-member union that included set decorators and property masters.

The article continues:

Within that fraternity, studio executives, producers and superagents make handshake deals on the beach at Malibu or after backyard barbecues in Bel Air. And if blacks are shut out of the socializing, then they're also cut out of the wheeling and dealing that takes place. Such was the case last month at a small dinner party at the Malibu home of record and movie mogul David Geffen. The dozen or so guests who shared caviar, roast duckling and small talk with visiting President Bill Clinton—among them co-DreamWorks SKG founders Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg—were exclusively white, and exclusively male.