Two authors will talk about their explorations of the Chinese experience in America during separate upcoming events sponsored by the Colgate Bookstore.
Best-selling author Iris Chang will read from and discuss her latest book, “The Chinese in America: A Narrative History,” at 7 p.m. Monday at Persson Hall Auditorium. Chang will answer questions and sign copies of her book after the free presentation, which is open to the public.
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Graham Russell Gao Hodges • What: Book-signing, reception, showing of the film ‘Piccadilly’ Iris Chang • What: Discussion, book-signing, question and answer period |
Chang examines the history of one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States, saying the Chinese have faced immense hardships in America but also have achieved great success.
She explores the stories of these individuals—the laborers whose initiative made possible the laying of railroad track across mountain ranges; the immigrants who were detained, sometimes for years, at San Francisco’s Angel Island; the cooks who (inadvertently) invented chop suey and chow mein; and many more.
Often stereotyped as a passive group, Chang shows how the Chinese in America actually have a long history of activism. Chang also discusses the unique position of the small and little-known Chinese community in the Deep South, where for generations they have delicately straddled the racial divide.
Chang won wide acclaim for her international bestseller, ‘The Rape of Nanking.’ In it, she examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China.
On Thursday, Graham Russell Gao Hodges, professor of history at Colgate, will introduce a free screening of the 1929 silent film “Piccadilly” starring Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong.
Hodges wrote a biography of the actress: “Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend.” He explores the life of the celebrated Chinese-American actress who appeared in more than 50 Hollywood movies from 1919 to 1960.
Hodges details Wong’s career, which included leading roles in “The Thief of Baghdad” (1924) opposite Douglas Fairbanks and in “Shanghai Express” (1932) opposite Marlene Dietrich, and the myriad ways she was perceived by film audiences and critics.
Hodges says that her talent, charm, sophistication, and magnetic screen presence made her a popular figure in movie magazines around the world. She was an international celebrity seen by many fans as personifying Chinese womanhood.
Officials in China, however, were angered by this image of Wong, and called her a stooge of Hollywood. They rankled as she was often portrayed as a dragon lady or shy geisha girl, with her character inevitably being made a victim by her Caucasian counterparts.
Hodges, though, contends in his book that Wong bravely fought Asian stereotypes, in both her professional and personal lives, and that she helped dismantle barriers as she introduced Chinese culture to world societies and helped pave the way for more authentic depictions of Chinese people in films, though it is still a struggle in today’s Hollywood.
A restored version of “Piccadilly” premiered late last year to a sold-out audience at the New York Film Festival. It is a British murder mystery that features Wong playing a dancer from China who finds herself caught up in a crooked liaison between a nightclub owner and another dancer.