She specializes in race and ethnicity in film, television, and new media, particularly in Asian American representation and bias in Hollywood filmmaking.
[6] The book is based on more than a hundred interviews with people involved in the film industry, particularly actors of color, conducted from 2005 to 2015.
[7] Yuen identifies several ways that people at many stages of the film production process, from talent agents to casting directors to script writers, contribute to constraining the roles that are available to actors of color.
[10] In 2017, Yuen was a co-author of the study Tokens on the small screen: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in prime time and streaming television.
[11] In addition to her academic research, Yuen has been a regular contributor to news outlets, has provided expert commentary and interviews for popular media, and has co-produced documentary films.
[18] Yuen was also interviewed in the PBS documentary Asian Americans,[19] and she has been profiled in PRI's The World[20] and Faithfully Magazine.