Beyond the Chinese Connection: Contemporary Afro-Asian Cultural Production

In Beyond "The Chinese Connection," Crystal S. Anderson explores the cultural and political exchanges between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Asians over the last four decades. To do so, Anderson examines such cultural productions as novels (Frank Chin's Gunga Din Highway  1999], Ishmael Reed's Japanese by Spring  1992], and Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle  1996]); films (Rush Hour 2  2001], Unleashed  2005], and The Matrix trilogy  1999-2003]); and Japanese animation (Samurai Champloo  2004]), all of which feature cross-cultural conversations. In exploring the ways in which writers and artists use this transferal, Anderson traces and tests the limits of how Afro-Asian cultural production interrogates conceptions of race, ethnic identity, politics, and transnational exchange. 
 Ultimately, this book reads contemporary black/Asian cultural fusions through the recurrent themes established by the films of Bruce Lee, which were among the first--and certainly most popular--works to use this exchange explicitly. As a result of such films as Enter the Dragon (1973), The Chinese Connection (1972), and The Big Boss (1971), Lee emerges as both a cross-cultural hero and global cultural icon who resonates with the experiences of African American, Asian American and Asian youth in the 1970s. Lee's films and iconic imagery prefigure themes that reflect cross-cultural negotiations with global culture in post-1990 Afro-Asian cultural production.

Author: Crystal S. Anderson
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 01/21/2015
Pages: 222
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.76lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.53d
ISBN: 9781496802538
About the Author
Crystal S. Anderson is affiliate faculty in Korean studies, Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University. She is author of Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop,  published by University Press of Mississippi. Her work has appeared in African American Review, Ethnic Studies Review, and Extrapolation