The ‘Shib Sibs’ Olympians Alex and Maia Shibutani have discussed their views on Asian representation.
Olympic ice dancer siblings Alex and Maia Shibutani have been skating together for 14 years. Winning two ice dancing bronze medals in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the Japanese American duo who also go by the nickname the ‘Shib Sibs’, are proving to be quite an inspiration.
In an interview with the Huffington Post, the Shib Sibs revealed their thoughts about Asian representation. When asked about stereotypes, Alex responded, “I believe that stereotypes are a load of crap. Uh, supposedly I’m supposed to be good at math and science.”
His younger sister quickly confirmed her brother’s revelation by saying, “he isn’t.”
“I was terrible at math and science,” Alex continued. “I think that if you are a human being on this planet, you can be good at whatever you want to do. And for us, that was ice dancing, that was figure skating. And we’re passionate about it, and so we worked really hard, and it takes hard work. But you can do whatever you want.”
Maia added that they tend to ignore the media. “We don’t really pay attention to what the media says,” she said. “I mean, we’ve been working so hard, and at this Olympics, I know we did everything that we could do that was under our control.”
When asked if either of them had experienced stereotypes, Alex replied, “throughout our career, I’ve never really felt blatantly stereotyped, but seeing the people that we compete against, I see that we are different. I’ve noticed that. It would be silly for me not to. But I feel like being different is a really great thing. It’s a gift. It’s an opportunity to be unique.”
