Brenda Song
Age: 21
Actress
Why she's influential: Because the Disney generation is watching. Hmong American actress Brenda Song is best known for her role as ditzy hotel heiress London Tipton (like Paris Hilton -- get it?) in the hit Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, a show I will admit to having seen on several occasions. It's a pretty ridiculous program, but then again, I'm far from the target audience.
Brenda is a bonafide Disney Channel starlet, with a starring role on one of the network's most popular sitcoms and huge appeal amongst the 'tween' set. That's massive fan cred where it counts. While Disney's most bankable force of nature, Miley Cyrus, might be making ching chong faces with friends in her spare time, Brenda is holding it down as a real Asian face on the Disney Channel.
When she isn't filing lawsuits against the really really inappropriate use of her image, she's starring in Disney's Zack & Cody spinoff The Suite Life on Deck, the sequel to Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, and can be seen this summer in the futuristic dance movie Boogie Town.
All this, and young Brenda has managed to avoid being associated (thus never seriously embarrassing herself) with the dreadful Hollywood party girl scene. In Tinseltown, that's definitely got to be worth something.
See the rest of the 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30 here.
