Like everyone else, I have spent the last few months listening to Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License," "Déjà Vu," and "Good 4 U" on repeat, witnessing the viral trend of TikTok and reminiscing about my teenage years. As of this writing, Rodrigo has over 16 million followers on Instagram and 10 million fans on TikTok. Her album "SOUR" debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, her debut single "Drivers License" held the top spot for eight weeks, and she recently reached 1 billion streams on Spotify. It is nominated in five categories at the upcoming MTV Video Music Awards. Even Saturday Night Live used Rodrigo's debut single to perform a hilarious skit parodying the lack of male vulnerability.

Many of her fans, however, may not know that Rodrigo is Asian-American.

When I told my best friend, she replied, "Wow, I literally had no idea." In fact, most of my white classmates were the ones who said they didn't know. But as an Asian American myself, I took this information to heart the moment I first saw Olivia Rodrigo on the Disney Channel a few years ago.

Rodrigo is half Filipino. Her appearance is ethnically ambiguous if you don't look for it, and can be considered white passing. The daughter of a mother who is a teacher and a father who is a family therapist, Rodrigo is technically a fourth-generation Filipina American (opens in new tab) whose great-grandfather came to this country by boat as a teenager. Asian Americans are not a monolith, and everyone is aware of their heritage to varying degrees due to the power relations between new and old immigrants. But as Rodrigo's presence in the music industry grows, both in the U.S. and abroad, more and more children of color will come to respect her as a person of expression.

Not that Rodrigo has not been open about her heritage and what it means to her: three years ago, while appearing on "Bizaardvark," Rodrigo participated in the Disney Channel's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month television campaign. She spoke about her great-grandfather's immigration from the Philippines and her family's traditions, including eating her grandmother's lumpia, and declared to the camera, "I am an Asian Pacific Islander."

While knowledge of the drama surrounding Rodrigo's "High School Musical: The Musical" series co-star Joshua Bassett is widespread, the fact that her character on the show, Nini Salazar-Roberts, is the daughter of an interracial queer couple Few viewers have taken note; her song "Out of the Old" on the Disney+ series is directly inspired by a conversation Nini had with her Filipino grandmother, Lola (opens in new tab), on Thanksgiving Day about her experience of starting over after immigrating to the United States.

Many pop stars are forced by their appearance to represent all black people and all plus-size women, forcing them to take ownership of their identity. Rodrigo intentionally highlights her upbringing, but most fans ignore that aspect of who she is. This is because being Asian is not so obvious. But that is our responsibility, not Rodrigo's.

Those who say Olivia's ethnic background is unimportant fail to recognize how much representation means to people who have long felt excluded. We project ourselves onto people like Rodrigo because we feel we are not being seen and we want to feel seen. Representation is sometimes an effective marketing tool. It can also be a force over which the star has no control. It is in the eye of the beholder, and that can be a burden. While some stars are almost crushed by the pressure, Rodrigo is taking this new spotlight in stride. Instead of striving for perfection, he admits when he doesn't know the answer. When asked by an Asian-American radio host to elaborate on the nuances of words like "tita" in Tagalog and how to use them to show respect to an older woman, Rodrigo candidly replied, "I don't know. You'd have to ask someone in my family." That is true of her experience and that of many other Asian Americans who, over generations, have gradually adapted and perhaps changed their relationship to their heritage.

As more and more of the world gets to know her, Rodrigo is embracing this new responsibility; in a recent V Magazine interview with SNL's Bowen Yang, Rodrigo talks about how emotional (opening with a new tab) it is to represent Asian women: "I sometimes get little girl gives me a DM." I've never seen anyone who looks like me in your position." Just thinking about it literally brings tears to my eyes. I feel like I grew up never seeing that. It was like, 'Pop stars are white girls.'"

Many of the lyrics of her songs resonate with me as a second-generation Asian American. 'Jealousy, jealousy ......' The lyrics "I'm jealous of you, I'm jealous of you, I'm jealous of you" remind me of how my mother and teachers compared me to the only other Asian child in the same grade and how I tried my best to overcome my scarcity. When I heard the lyrics, "You're probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt myself," I felt seen as someone who grew up attending a predominantly white school. By turning a commonly stigmatized emotion into a song, Asian Americans, the racial group least likely to receive mental health treatment in the U.S., may be encouraged to express their feelings and seek therapy. Her vulnerability becomes a kind of activism.

Whether or not you see yourself in Olivia Rodrigo, the reality is that she will likely be on the music and Hollywood scene for years to come. Every time she speaks out, there will be a lot of attention. If she continues to embrace her Filipino-American identity and people continue to see themselves in her, this will have a tremendous impact. She has been candid about her self-education about the "model minority myth" affecting Asians and her solidarity with other people of color and the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Her outspokenness about going to the polls may increase the civic engagement of her followers (Asian Americans and 18-25 year olds have the lowest turnout). Her recent visit to the White House to talk about vaccines with President Biden and Dr. Fauci is a reminder of how much she understands that she can do something about it at this very moment.

Sometimes, when I look at her photos, I suddenly see her "Asian" side. I get excited whenever she posts about her best friend, co-star, and "soulmate" Madison Hu and music artist Conan Gray (half). I am a Han Chinese American, not a Filipina. Sometimes I feel I project too much onto Olivia Rodrigo. Just as we cannot put our full trust in one politician to be our savior, we know that as human beings, we cannot put our full trust in one artist or songwriter to represent us. [If someone can ignore the fact that Olivia Rodrigo is Asian-American, then they already have the privilege of seeing themselves well in the media. They don't need to reach out and grab for representation. Her identity should not matter, but it does. And it reveals how far we have to go.