What Ethnicity is Jessie Mei Li from Shadow and Bone? Answered

Shadow and Bone on Netflix has put out two seasons so far, with actress Jessie Mei Li taking the role of Alina Starkov. Whenever an existing license is adapted for the screen, fans often want to know how accurately their favorite character was cast. In the case of Alina, ethnicity is the main characteristic that fans wondered about. In this article, we’ll clarify what ethnicity Jessie Mei Li is from Shadow and Bone.

Actress Jessie Mei Li’s Ethnic Background in Shadow and Bone

Actress Jessie Mei Li was born in South East England, in Brighton, East Sussex, which is a county on the English Channel coast. Her mother is of English descent while her father is from Hong Kong. This makes Jessie half-Asian and half-Caucasian for her ethnic background.

The actress has expressed in previous interviews that she always felt shunned when going on auditions because roles would go to either fully white or fully Asian actresses. Since she was in between, it was difficult for her to land roles. In a fortunate turn of events, her casting in Shadow and Bone ended up breaking the mold and transforming the character whose ethnicity was singular, into an ethnically mixed character.

The Grishaverse & Alina Starkov’s Background

The Grishaverse, where the Shadow and Bone young adult novel series takes place, has multiple nation states, three of which have been introduced so far in the Netflix series; Ravka, Shu Han, and Fjerda. The nations in the Grishaverse draw inspiration from multiple Asian and European countries which creates a population of ethnically diverse characters.

In the original book series, Alina was described as being full-on Ravkan, which is the author’s take on a version of Russia still being ruled by a Czar. The language the Ravkans use has many similarities to Russian, and this is evident in Alina’s last name, Starkov.

The other nation to take note of for Alina’s character is Shu Han. Shu Han is a nation that’s located directly south of Ravka and their civilization is based in Mongolia and China. It’s apparent in their name and the description of their people, who have black hair and golden.

This would mean that Alina Starkov was originally considered to be closer to a Russian’s ethnicity, but in the Netflix series, the author explains in an interview that she wanted to change Alina to be half-Ravkan and half-Shu.

Now you know what ethnicity Jessie Mei Li is in Shadow and Bone, and this bodes well for the show since it helps introduce more ethnic diversity into American shows, and it worked out perfectly for actress Jesse Mei Lin, who is of half-Chinese and half-British ancestry herself.