David Carradine, Cherokee?

According to Wikipedia, David Carradine's ancestry was "Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, German, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, and Cherokee." Someone suggested he was cast as the half-Chinese Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu because his Cherokee "blood" made him look slightly Asiatic.

Racialicious has a good discussion of David Carradine's Legacy of Shame. Not only did the Anglo Carradine play an Asian role that might've gone to Bruce Lee, he exploited it the rest of his career. Writer Atlasien describes how this made him feel:All the rest of the characters reacted to him as if he were Asian, when he was quite obviously 100% white. This confused the hell out of me when I first saw the show. Once I realized he was supposed to be Asian, it made me angry.

[E]very time we watched it, we were reminded that it was possible for white people to take the best of what they wanted from Asian culture. Asian culture was mysterious and cool, but real Asian people were unwanted and superfluous. They could easily be replaced by the right kind of white man. And nobody remarked about it, nobody complained… at least it seemed that way.It's instructive to hear how one TV show upset Atlasien. Now multiply this by dozens of examples of non-Asians playing Asians (as noted in Hollywood Chinese). Even the great Hawaii Five-0 used Anglo actors as Asians every now and then.

Needless to say, this is the same situation as non-Natives playing Native roles. Read the comments for more reactions to this type of inauthentic casting. Short version: It hurts when Hollywood makes you invisible.

For more on the subject, see TV Shows Featuring Indians.