Harry Kim’s role played by Garrett Wang on Star Trek Voyager was a significant milestone in East Asian Screen Representation, via StarTrek.com

Star Trek: The Original Series shoved the American media world in the right direction by giving us George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu – an admirable member of the bridge crew and one of the series’ heroes. He was a rare character of Asian descent who got to be a major player on a sci-fi show. In fact, such sci-fi roles for Asian characters are so rare that decades later, when John Cho took over the role for the 2009 Star Trek cinematic reboot, Sulu’s very existence still felt groundbreaking for diversity in media.

But more than a decade before that, Star Trek: Voyager gave us Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim — who was not only a major character on a sci-fi show, but also the romantic lead in several episodes. While his adventures (well, mostly misadventures) in love were entertaining and often lighthearted fun, they were also something of a milestone for Asian American representation. In a media landscape in which Asian men were almost never depicted as desirable, Harry Kim got the girl and in 1997 Garrett Wang was even named one of People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People in the World.