Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community is a community history that provides an insider’s perspective on the relationship between Los Angeles Chinatown and Hollywood film production during the exclusion era. The book argues that, beginning in the 1890s, Chinese American elites used artistic and creative performances to reshape popular perceptions of their community, significantly contributing to the inclusion of Asian American communities—arguably more so than the rapid geopolitical changes during World War II.
The author identifies the emergence of “Chinatown Pastiche” at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition as the beginning of a process through which Chinese American elites sought to change the negative image of Chinatowns and Chinese Americans. They did this primarily by distinguishing themselves from lower-class immigrants and portraying Chinatown as a site of tourism and entertainment for White visitors. This “fraught cultural form” (p. 16) encompasses all cultural production by Chinese American merchants and aligns with the values of American capitalism (Chapter 1).
Chinatown Pastiche became the guiding logic during the 1937 reconstruction of New Chinatown in Los Angeles, commissioned to White architects to make it more appealing to White consumers. In discussing New Chinatown’s competition with the China City project initiated by a White female investor, the book skillfully highlights how different factions within the Chinese American community navigated and influenced urban restructuring. While both projects had a theatrical quality shaped by White imagination of the Oriental other, New Chinatown emphasized the embrace of American values, including westward colonial expansion, at a time when Los Angeles was being reimagined as a suburban refuge for White middle classes (Chapter 2).
In Part II, the focus shifts from urban design to Hollywood productions and their impact on popular perceptions of Chinatowns and the self-perceptions of Chinese Americans. Contrary to common critical views, the author analyzes the 1937 film The Good Earth, adapted from Pearl S. Buck’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, as a groundbreaking work that depicted Chinese characters positively and provided economic opportunities for the Chinese American community during the Great Depression by using a predominantly Chinese American cast, except for the lead roles (Chapters 3 and 4).
This positive relationship with Hollywood strengthened during World War II when Chinese Americans began featuring prominently as Japanese villains. During this period, Chinese Americans sought to integrate with the American majority by differentiating themselves from Japanese Americans, even if it meant further marginalizing all people of Japanese descent in the United States (Chapter 5). This period of Chinese inclusion culminated in the 1938 Moon Festival, organized by the Chinese American community in cooperation with United China Relief to raise funds for China’s war effort. Although the festival widely utilized Orientalist tropes, it also featured the Mei Wah Girls’ Drum Corps, which defied these stereotypes by representing Chinese American women in leading roles and challenging the traditional narratives of female subjugation in Chinese culture (Chapter 6).
As with the Mei Wah Girls’ Drum Corps, there are instances in the book where the focus may seem narrow or the interpretation overly detailed. However, this does not diminish the book’s value. Its appeal extends beyond academia, and will attract members of the Asian American community and enthusiasts of cinema, history, and urban studies. Readers will appreciate the fluid storytelling, compelling imagery, and the personal touch of the author.
University of California Press