'Bachelor's' First Asian Heroine Is Ready for Her Moment

Jenn Tran can’t help but think about being the first Asian-American in the history of The single person frankness – even if she doesn’t want to.

“I think about it every day, all the time. I think if I put it aside, it would be a disgrace to me, because I’m Asian American, this is me,” the 26-year-old aspiring physician assistant told AP.

The arrival of a Vietnamese-American woman at the helm of Bachelor Nation marks a significant moment for the reality TV giant. Historically, fewer roses The single person And The Bachelorette The roses distributed were often accompanied by many thorns, including racist comments on social media.

Tran’s season doesn’t premiere on ABC until Monday, but it has already been criticized for having few Asian-American contenders. Still, Tran — who made it to the final six Bachelor season starring Joey Graziadei — embraces his unconventional search for love as an opportunity to share his bicultural upbringing.

“My mother and I speak a lot of Vietnamese together. I can’t wait for people to see it. It’s something no one has ever seen before,” Tran says.

The single person was a mixed success when it came to showcasing Asian cultures. In 2019, Bachelor Host Colton Underwood went on a date over a Singaporean street food meal. The mostly white contestants made gagging sounds and Colton, who is also white, toasted “weird food.” The outing sparked backlash and even a column in the Washington Post.

Tran, whose season has already wrapped filming, says the show treated her Vietnamese identity with respect.

“There’s a little scene at the beginning of my introduction where I’m talking to my family about starting out as a single person and they’ve made a big, big Vietnamese meal,” Tran says. “I hope… that I’m showing people something that’s different from them. And so it can inspire change and acceptance in people.”

Nonwhite contestants and leads, including Black frontrunners Rachel Lindsay and Matt James, have historically faced hostility from Bachelor Nation’s overwhelmingly white audience. Longtime host Chris Harrison left the franchise in 2021 amid criticism for his handling of a racism controversy in an interview with Lindsay. Rachel Nance, who is Filipina and Black and survived Tran on Graziadei’s season, tearfully recounted that in March, she received “hundreds” of DMs and comments containing racial slurs against Black and Asian people. (Some viewers were disappointed that host Jesse Palmer didn’t address racism but instead asked viewers to tone down their “strong opinions.”)

Tran hasn’t been spared the same treatment. She receives racist comments “every day” on Instagram and TikTok, she says. Her approach is to simply ignore them, though it’s not easy.

“Social media is like a platform where all these people are coming at me at once and it’s a new feeling. It’s overwhelming. And unfortunately, that’s the world we live in right now,” Tran says. “I hope people will be more open-minded and really open their hearts to that.”