BOOK DATA Yiman Wang, To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World. University of California Press, 2024. $34.95 paper. 284 pages.

In To Be an Actress: Labor and Performance in Anna May Wong’s Cross-Media World, Yiman Wang critically observes that “much of the media frenzy” surrounding Chinese American actress Anna May Wong (1905–61) was driven by “a purist and heteronormative urge” to “fit her into an a priori fetishized category” (98). By contrast, Wang aims to dismantle what she calls the “media closet,” a construct shaped by hypervisibility and invisibility. This reinterpretation of Anna May Wong’s legacy is particularly poignant in the postpandemic era, where increasing Asian American representation in mainstream media coincides with a surge in anti-Asian hate and violence. In this context, To Be an Actress not only reconstructs the cultural resonance of Wong’s performances during her lifetime but also powerfully...

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