When “Saturday Night Live” begins its 45th season on Saturday, standup comedian and show staff writer Bowen Yang will become its first cast member of East Asian descent. Yang’s signing by “SNL” follows a string of hit films and movies with starring Asian Americans.

Last summer “Crazy Rich Asians” — with an all-Asian cast — became the top-grossing romantic comedy in a decade. The ABC sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” about a Chinese-American family, begins its sixth season this fall. And the Netflix film “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” starring an Asian-American female lead, became a hit download that sparked two sequels.

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