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Jimmy Carter sought to expand democracy worldwide long after he left the White House

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Jimmy Carter sought to expand democracy worldwide long after he left the White House
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Jimmy Carter sought to expand democracy worldwide long after he left the White House

2024-12-31 13:01 Last Updated At:13:11

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Amid everything else on his desk — the Iran hostage crisis, domestic economic turmoil, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a grueling 1980 reelection fight — President Jimmy Carter elevated the independence of a country in southern Africa as a top agenda item.

Carter hosted then-Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe at the White House soon after his country achieved independence and later described Zimbabwe's adoption of democracy as “our greatest single success.”

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FILE - PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with former President Jimmy Carter before their meeting at Arafat's office in Gaza City, on the eve of the first Palestinian elections, Jan. 19, 1996. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE - PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with former President Jimmy Carter before their meeting at Arafat's office in Gaza City, on the eve of the first Palestinian elections, Jan. 19, 1996. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE - A volunteer election observer reviews training materials on Nov. 6, 2022, at the Carter Center in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

FILE - A volunteer election observer reviews training materials on Nov. 6, 2022, at the Carter Center in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, right, watch election workers prepare ballots at a polling station in Managua, Nicaragua, Feb. 25, 1990. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, right, watch election workers prepare ballots at a polling station in Managua, Nicaragua, Feb. 25, 1990. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, background second right, former U.N. head Kofi Annan, background right, and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, background second from left, watch children perform during a visit to the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 23, 2008. The diplomats were barred entry into Zimbabwe on a humanitarian visit over the weekend. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, background second right, former U.N. head Kofi Annan, background right, and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, background second from left, watch children perform during a visit to the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 23, 2008. The diplomats were barred entry into Zimbabwe on a humanitarian visit over the weekend. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, speaks with journalists and voting station authorities outside a polling station near Juba, southern Sudan, April 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, speaks with journalists and voting station authorities outside a polling station near Juba, southern Sudan, April 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talks with the press upon his arrival in Georgetown, Guyana, Oct. 3, 1992, to monitor the elections on Oct. 5. (AP Photo/Diego Giudice, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talks with the press upon his arrival in Georgetown, Guyana, Oct. 3, 1992, to monitor the elections on Oct. 5. (AP Photo/Diego Giudice, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter meets with Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, Nepal's chief election official, on April 8, 2008, in Katmandu, Nepal. (AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter meets with Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, Nepal's chief election official, on April 8, 2008, in Katmandu, Nepal. (AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter stands in a polling station at San Miguelito, Panama, as part of an international delegation of observers under the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government on May 7, 1989. (AP Photo/Luis Romero, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter stands in a polling station at San Miguelito, Panama, as part of an international delegation of observers under the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government on May 7, 1989. (AP Photo/Luis Romero, File)

FILE - The motorcade of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter passes a man praying in the street beneath an election poster for presidential candidate Khaled Ali during the election of a new president after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, May 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell, File)

FILE - The motorcade of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter passes a man praying in the street beneath an election poster for presidential candidate Khaled Ali during the election of a new president after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, May 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, monitors voting at a polling station in Beirut's Christian sector of Ashrafieh, Lebanon, on June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, monitors voting at a polling station in Beirut's Christian sector of Ashrafieh, Lebanon, on June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, second left, and Jennifer McCoy, third left, observe the voting process, while Joyce Grey, right, waits to cast her ballot at a polling station in Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 16, 2002. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, second left, and Jennifer McCoy, third left, observe the voting process, while Joyce Grey, right, waits to cast her ballot at a polling station in Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 16, 2002. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, former Botswanan President Ketumile Joni Masire, center, and former Tanzanian Prime Minister Joseph Warioba, fourth from right, address members of the media at a polling station at the university in Addis Ababa, during the third democratic elections in Ethiopia's 3,000-year history, May 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, former Botswanan President Ketumile Joni Masire, center, and former Tanzanian Prime Minister Joseph Warioba, fourth from right, address members of the media at a polling station at the university in Addis Ababa, during the third democratic elections in Ethiopia's 3,000-year history, May 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, visits a polling station in Katmandu, Nepal, on Nov. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, visits a polling station in Katmandu, Nepal, on Nov. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks at a news conference in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks at a news conference in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Nigerian head of state Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after a meeting at the Nigerian Presidential Villa in the capital Abuja, on Feb. 28, 1999. (AP Photo/Danny Wilcox Frazier, File)

FILE - Nigerian head of state Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after a meeting at the Nigerian Presidential Villa in the capital Abuja, on Feb. 28, 1999. (AP Photo/Danny Wilcox Frazier, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, meets with Nicaraguan presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Oct. 19, 1996, in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, meets with Nicaraguan presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Oct. 19, 1996, in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

FILE - President Jimmy Carter meets with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in the Oval Office in Washington, on Aug. 27, 1980. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

FILE - President Jimmy Carter meets with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in the Oval Office in Washington, on Aug. 27, 1980. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

Three decades later, Carter, who was long out of office, found the door slammed shut when he and other dignitaries sought to visit Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission to observe reported human rights abuses after a violent disputed election in 2008. He had become a critic of Mugabe’s regime and was denied a visa.

Carter didn’t give up. From neighboring South Africa, he relied on emissaries from Zimbabwe for testimony on violence and allegations of electoral fraud. The effort reflected the former president's long commitment to promoting democracy worldwide.

This “more than anything else cemented Carter’s legacy” as an advocate for free and fair elections across Africa, said Eldred Masunungure, a former political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

“Carter didn’t change. Zimbabwe did. Mugabe swayed from the democratic ideals that Carter held so dear,” he said. “The incident demonstrates Carter’s consistency, the steadfastness.”

Zimbabwe’s evolution toward autocracy turned out to be the kind of scenario that the Carter Center has long sought to prevent by deploying observers and developing voting standards in countries struggling to form democracies.

Established in 1982, two years after Carter lost his bid for a second term, the center has been Carter's signature effort to promote fair elections as a vehicle for peace. It has sent observers to monitor some 125 elections in 40 countries and three tribal nations, and has been credited with helping expand democracy across the globe.

Carter’s “moral authority, the trust people put in him and the credibility of someone who had both won and lost an election” contributed to these successes, David Carroll, head of the center’s democracy program, told The Associated Press.

Carter, who died Sunday at 100, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for the center’s work supporting elections, promoting human rights and helping developing countries cultivate economic, social and public health institutions.

Its elections work began in Panama, where Carter became concerned about the 1989 elections after reports of armed militia members in civilian clothes confiscating voting records during the night.

The Carter Center had just decided to expand its mission of conflict resolution and human rights to include vote monitoring, concluding that democratic elections were essential to resolving political disputes.

“In my fumbling Spanish, I stood up on a table, and I denounced the election as fraudulent,” Carter recalled in a 2015 video marking the center’s 100th election observer mission. “There was later another election, which was honest and fair, and that was the birth of real democracy in Panama.”

The center also helped rescue a peace process in Nepal, then oversaw the country’s twice-postponed elections in 2008 to elect an assembly that would be tasked with writing a constitution. Carter made several trips to the South Asian nation, holding marathon negotiations with former rebels and top politicians to keep the peace process on track.

“There was deadlock in the country. Political parties were not sitting together, and there was no way out on how the process will move on,” said Bhojraj Pokharel, Nepal’s chief election commissioner in 2008, who later worked with Carter in Congo and Myanmar.

On Nepal's election day, Carter traveled to dozens of polling stations talking to voters. Polling was peaceful despite earlier fears of violence.

“His presence itself was a message to the Nepalese population and voters about the integrity of the election,” Pokharel said.

The Carter Center often works in countries with little or no experience in representative government and where trust has all but evaporated because of violence.

After Bolivia held elections in 2019 that the Organization of American States said were marred by fraud, the country’s electoral tribunal invited the Carter Center to observe elections the following year. The center deployed a team to Bolivia and later commended the country for elections it called impartial and transparent.

The Carter Center’s “evaluation was important not only for how the international community viewed us but also for how Bolivian society evaluated the electoral process,” said Salvador Romero, the tribunal’s president at the time.

Similar results have been difficult to obtain recently in Africa, where many countries emerging from decades of colonialism have seen forceful takeovers and disputed elections.

In Nigeria, Tunisia, Zambia and Ivory Coast, Carter Center observers noted violence, killings, vote-buying, uneven playing fields for political parties and candidates, and a general lack of trust in elections.

In Tunisia, frustration has replaced the wave of hope brought by the 2010 Arab Spring uprising. A new parliament was convened in March 2023, two years after President Kais Saied suspended parliament and started legislating by decree. The 11% turnout for parliamentary elections marked “a low point” for the country's democracy, The Carter Center said, and some election observer groups were denied accreditation for the October 2024 presidential contest.

At times, Carter personally intervened to keep African peace processes on track by trying to persuade warlords and rebels to support elections, rather than the use of force, in their quests for power.

In recent years, the Carter Center’s elections work turned toward the U.S.

Its teams deployed to Oklahoma in 2017 at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes following elections plagued with problems. In 2013, ballots had been moved from office to office and stored without proper security, eroding confidence in the integrity of the vote. A recount then overturned the results, tribal Gov. Reggie Wassana said.

The Carter Center’s presence in the later election made “a huge difference, and it restored some faith among tribal members,” Wassana said.

Until 2020, the center tried to stay away from broader political issues in the United States, according to Carroll. But the center noticed threats to American democracy were increasing, which prompted a decision to expand programs within the U.S.

“If we saw the same conditions in another country that we were seeing in the U.S. — the lack of trust in election institutions, polarization and growing concern of political violence — it is exactly the kind of country we would prioritize to see if we could play a constructive role,” Carroll said.

Faith in U.S. elections, most notably among a large segment of Republican voters, eroded after the 2020 election amid former President Donald Trump's false claims that Democrats had rigged the vote. There was no evidence of widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in that election.

In the 2024 presidential election, which Trump won, the center did some limited observation in New Mexico, Montana and Fulton County, Georgia. In many U.S. states, election observers are limited to political party representatives, with no provisions for nonpartisan, independent groups. The center is working to change that.

Carter's leadership on democracy issues remains a north star for the center, Carroll said.

“You can help strong systems be in place, but they need to be watched continually. You can never rest on your record on democracy and elections. You always have to be vigilant and keep an eye on the process,” he said.

FILE - PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with former President Jimmy Carter before their meeting at Arafat's office in Gaza City, on the eve of the first Palestinian elections, Jan. 19, 1996. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE - PLO chairman Yasser Arafat shakes hands with former President Jimmy Carter before their meeting at Arafat's office in Gaza City, on the eve of the first Palestinian elections, Jan. 19, 1996. (AP Photo/Adel Hana, File)

FILE - A volunteer election observer reviews training materials on Nov. 6, 2022, at the Carter Center in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

FILE - A volunteer election observer reviews training materials on Nov. 6, 2022, at the Carter Center in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, right, watch election workers prepare ballots at a polling station in Managua, Nicaragua, Feb. 25, 1990. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, right, watch election workers prepare ballots at a polling station in Managua, Nicaragua, Feb. 25, 1990. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, background second right, former U.N. head Kofi Annan, background right, and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, background second from left, watch children perform during a visit to the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 23, 2008. The diplomats were barred entry into Zimbabwe on a humanitarian visit over the weekend. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, background second right, former U.N. head Kofi Annan, background right, and Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, background second from left, watch children perform during a visit to the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nov. 23, 2008. The diplomats were barred entry into Zimbabwe on a humanitarian visit over the weekend. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, speaks with journalists and voting station authorities outside a polling station near Juba, southern Sudan, April 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, speaks with journalists and voting station authorities outside a polling station near Juba, southern Sudan, April 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Pete Muller, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talks with the press upon his arrival in Georgetown, Guyana, Oct. 3, 1992, to monitor the elections on Oct. 5. (AP Photo/Diego Giudice, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter talks with the press upon his arrival in Georgetown, Guyana, Oct. 3, 1992, to monitor the elections on Oct. 5. (AP Photo/Diego Giudice, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter meets with Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, Nepal's chief election official, on April 8, 2008, in Katmandu, Nepal. (AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter meets with Bhoj Raj Pokhrel, Nepal's chief election official, on April 8, 2008, in Katmandu, Nepal. (AP Photo/Ed Wray, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter stands in a polling station at San Miguelito, Panama, as part of an international delegation of observers under the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government on May 7, 1989. (AP Photo/Luis Romero, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter stands in a polling station at San Miguelito, Panama, as part of an international delegation of observers under the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government on May 7, 1989. (AP Photo/Luis Romero, File)

FILE - The motorcade of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter passes a man praying in the street beneath an election poster for presidential candidate Khaled Ali during the election of a new president after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, May 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell, File)

FILE - The motorcade of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter passes a man praying in the street beneath an election poster for presidential candidate Khaled Ali during the election of a new president after the fall of ex-President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, May 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Thomas Hartwell, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, monitors voting at a polling station in Beirut's Christian sector of Ashrafieh, Lebanon, on June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, monitors voting at a polling station in Beirut's Christian sector of Ashrafieh, Lebanon, on June 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, second left, and Jennifer McCoy, third left, observe the voting process, while Joyce Grey, right, waits to cast her ballot at a polling station in Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 16, 2002. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, second left, and Jennifer McCoy, third left, observe the voting process, while Joyce Grey, right, waits to cast her ballot at a polling station in Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 16, 2002. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, former Botswanan President Ketumile Joni Masire, center, and former Tanzanian Prime Minister Joseph Warioba, fourth from right, address members of the media at a polling station at the university in Addis Ababa, during the third democratic elections in Ethiopia's 3,000-year history, May 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, right, former Botswanan President Ketumile Joni Masire, center, and former Tanzanian Prime Minister Joseph Warioba, fourth from right, address members of the media at a polling station at the university in Addis Ababa, during the third democratic elections in Ethiopia's 3,000-year history, May 15, 2005. (AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, visits a polling station in Katmandu, Nepal, on Nov. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, visits a polling station in Katmandu, Nepal, on Nov. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks at a news conference in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter speaks at a news conference in Katmandu, Nepal, on April 1, 2013. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

FILE - Nigerian head of state Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after a meeting at the Nigerian Presidential Villa in the capital Abuja, on Feb. 28, 1999. (AP Photo/Danny Wilcox Frazier, File)

FILE - Nigerian head of state Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar shakes hands with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter after a meeting at the Nigerian Presidential Villa in the capital Abuja, on Feb. 28, 1999. (AP Photo/Danny Wilcox Frazier, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, meets with Nicaraguan presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Oct. 19, 1996, in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

FILE - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, left, meets with Nicaraguan presidential candidate Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, Oct. 19, 1996, in Managua, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

FILE - President Jimmy Carter meets with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in the Oval Office in Washington, on Aug. 27, 1980. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

FILE - President Jimmy Carter meets with Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe in the Oval Office in Washington, on Aug. 27, 1980. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma, File)

The first monologue Daniel Dae Kim ever performed was by David Henry Hwang.

He had to do one for his college summer program at the National Theater Institute in Connecticut. Kim chose a scene from “FOB," Hwang's play about the assimilation struggles of a Chinese American. So, it's fitting that 35 years later Hwang — the first Asian American to win the Tony Award for best play — would be the one to bring Kim into the Tony spotlight.

Known for TV series such as “Lost” and “Hawaii Five-0,” Kim, 56, is the first Asian nominee in the category of best leading actor in a play in the Tonys’ 78-year history for his work in a Broadway revival of Hwang’s “Yellow Face.”

“I can imagine a lot of things, but I did not imagine this scenario with David,” Kim said. “That I would be in a play with him, that we would both be nominated for Tony Awards and we would be able to call each other friends.”

In the semi-autobiographical show, which ran last fall at the Roundabout Theatre Company, Kim played a satirical version of Hwang. The show also scored nods for best play revival and best performance by a featured actor in a play for first-time nominee Francis Jue, an original 2007 cast member.

You could not have scripted a better ending for a play that was written in response to the musical “Miss Saigon” casting white actors as Asian characters.

Kim's performance was filmed in November and PBS will broadcast “Yellow Face” on Friday. The Tonys, airing on CBS on June 8, also will put a spotlight on the play.

This groundbreaking nomination seems like the perfect karmic reward for Kim, who has spent years advocating for greater Asian representation. At the pandemic's height, the Korean American actor was a constant media presence speaking out against anti-Asian hate. He also jump-started a campaign for veteran actor James Hong, then 91, to get a Hollywood star.

He woke up to the news of his nomination after people were able to get around his phone's “do not disturb” mode. His competition includes George Clooney and Cole Escola.

“It’d be a huge surprise if I won, but I will say that even getting the nomination is a win especially when you put it in the context of our community and what this means for Asian Americans,” said Kim, whose previous Broadway credits include “The King and I.”

He admits it's surprising and “a little sad” that no other Asian actor has been in this category. There’s still never been an Asian nominee for best lead actress in a play.

“Of course, the barrier we really want to break is to actually have someone win, and hopefully that happens sooner rather than later, whether it’s me or not.”

Kim is one of seven Asian acting nominees this year. Only three acting trophy winners have been Asian. One was Lea Salonga for “Miss Saigon” and another was Ruthie Ann Miles for “The King and I.” Coincidentally, the first was BD Wong for best featured actor in Hwang's Tony-winning play, “M. Butterfly.” Hwang takes special pride in helping actors break glass ceilings.

“I get to feel like, ‘Oh, maybe I’m actually able to make a difference’ and change the culture in the way that my little-kid-self would have loved but would not have thought possible," said Hwang, who now has his fourth career Tony nomination. He was last nominated 22 years ago.

For a long time, Hwang felt the only way to get a play with Asian characters made was to set it outside America because "Broadway audiences are not interested in Asian Americans.”

Historically, productions with Asian ensembles have been musicals set in “the exotic lands of Asia,” such as “The King and I," said Esther Kim Lee, a theater studies professor at Duke University and author of “The Theatre of David Henry Hwang." “Flower Drum Song,” set in San Francisco, was an exception but the songs and book were by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Hwang actually revised the book in 2002.

“It's 2025. We finally see an actual Asian American play with an Asian American lead,” Lee said. “You can have ‘The King and I’ and have great actors and they may get Tony Awards, but it’s really not about Asian Americans. That this has happened with ‘Yellow Face’ is just incredible.”

The show's two-month run brought the Roundabout a 50% increase in first-time audience members — “a powerful statement," Kim said.

“One of the nicest compliments I would hear after the show when I would go to the stage door is, ‘This is the first Broadway show I’ve ever seen,’" Kim said. “That meant a lot to me because bringing Asian Americans into the theater is important and bringing younger people into the theater is important just for the health of theater in general.”

Besides discussing whitewash casting, “Yellow Face” examines the pain of the main character's immigrant father. The role is based on Hwang's father's experience being wrongly accused of laundering money for China. With the current anti-immigrant and anti-DEI climate, the show's airing on PBS feels especially vital to Hwang.

“Whenever there’s a conflict between America and any Asian country, Asian Americans are the first to get targeted,” Hwang said.

PBS is also where in 2020 the five-episode history docuseries “Asian Americans" aired for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Kim was a narrator and remains “unequivocally proud" of the project.

Five years after the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes, Kim sees “Yellow Face” simply making it to Broadway as a victory.

“I don’t want to get preachy, but I will say that the goal with spotlighting and elevating people of color is not to threaten the establishment,” Kim said. “The goal was really to say everyone can contribute to our society. Everyone can be a positive force for change.”

Nominee Daniel Dae Kim from "Yellow Face" attends the 78th Annual Tony Awards Meet the Nominees press event at the Sofitel New York on Thursday, May 8, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Nominee Daniel Dae Kim from "Yellow Face" attends the 78th Annual Tony Awards Meet the Nominees press event at the Sofitel New York on Thursday, May 8, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

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