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Between 1919 and 1961, pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong established an enduring legacy that encompassed cinema, theater, radio, and American television. Born in Los Angeles, yet with her US citizenship scrutinized due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Wong-a defiant misfit-innovated nuanced performances to subvert the racism and sexism that beset her life and career. In this critical study of Wong's cross-media and transnational career, Yiman Wang marshals extraordinary archival research and a multifocal approach to illuminate a lifelong labor of performance. Viewing Wong as a performer and worker, not just a star, To Be an Actress adopts a feminist decolonial perspective to speculatively meet her as an interlocutor while inviting a reconsideration of racialized, gendered, and migratory labor as the bedrock of the entertainment industries.

About the Author
Yiman Wang is Professor of Film & Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of Remaking Chinese Cinema: Through the Prism of Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Hollywood.


Book Information
ISBN 9780520346321
Author Yiman Wang
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press