The “strange affinities”: early Chinese American Vaudevillians’ blackface performance
The “strange affinities”: early Chinese American Vaudevillians’ blackface performance
In the first two decades of the early twentieth century, Chinese American vaudeville artists reinterpreted their appearances on stage by utilizing Black performative languages. As a consideration of commercial selection value and a direct response to American ethnic relations, Chinese American vaudeville performers picked black-themed cultural works to perform. The way in which the early performers portrayed Chineseness exploited the imposed stereotypical labels and indicated a self-consciousness among second-generation Chinese American on stage. However, these on-stage self-representations, though likely a response to Sinophobia, were more of a passive reaction than a conscious decision. Similarly to their African American counterparts, to succeed in vaudeville, early Chinese American vaudevillians had to negotiate between well-developed preconceptions and their own artistic desires, which required them to bear the burdens of the past’s ugliness. Most of their performative languages, especially physical features, thus preserved the long-held stereotypes of Chinese people, such as the queue, the costume, etc.
Keywords:
Vaudeville, Chinese American, blackface, Black Theatre Performance Studies,
___
- Another Vaudeville Assistant. (1938, November 7). The New York Clipper.
- Ash in Chinese or Any Costume Gives Crowds Right Show. (1926, January 23). Exhibitors Herald.
- Bhabha, H. K. (1983). The Other Question…. Screen, 24(6), 18–36. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/24.6.18
- Blackface Gives Way to Chinese Minstrel Motif. (1921, December 4). Democrat and Chronicle, 4.
- Caldwell, D. (1971). The Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype in California. Southern California Quarterly, 53(2), 123–131. https://doi.org/10.2307/41170344
- Case, T., & Sponable, E. (Directors). (n.d.). Unseen Cinema Vol. 6: Amateur as Auteur.
- Cather, H. V. (1974). The history of San Francisco’s Chinatown. R And E Associates.
- Chinese Minstrels Please With Blackface Comedy. (1928, December 29). The Hanford Sentinel, 4.
- Ching Ling Foo and Co. (1923, February). Variety Vol 69, 16.
- Chung Mei Minstrels. (1928, December 28). The Hanford Sentinel, 5.
- Chung Mei Minstrels in Selma. (1925, April 3). The Selma Irrigator, 5.
- Foo, L. T. (1914, August 11). Lee to Alverson [Letter to Margaret Blake Alverson].
- Foo, L. T. (1915). Lee to Alverson [Letter to Margaret Blake Alverson].
- Garrett, C. H. (2004). Chinatown, Whose Chinatown? Defining America’s Borders with Musical Orientalism. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 57(1), 119–174. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2004.57.1.119
- Horsman, R. (1981). Race and manifest destiny : the origins of American racial Anglo-Saxonism. Harvard Univ. Press.
- Jones, A. F., & Nikhil Pal Singh. (2003). The Afro-Asian century. Duke University Press.
- Krasner, D. (1995). Parody and Double Consciousness in the Language of Early Black Musical Theatre. African American Review, 29(2), 317–323. https://doi.org/10.2307/3042310
- Krasner, D. (1998). Resistance, parody, and double consciousness in African American theatre : 1895-1910. St. Martin’s Press.
- L, J. (1919, April 23). New Acts. Variety, 25.
- Lee, J. (1998). Performing Asian America : Race and Ethnicity on the Contemporary Stage. Temple University Press.
- Lei, D. P.-W. (2006). Operatic China : staging Chinese identity across the Pacific. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Lye, C. (2008). The Afro-Asian Analogy. PMLA, 123(5), 1732–1736. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.5.1732
- Moon, K. R. (2005). Yellowface : creating the Chinese in American popular music and performance, 1850s-1920s. Rutgers University Press.
- Mullen, B. (2004). Afro-Orientalism. University Of Minnesota Press.
- Nee Wong. (1925, December 12). Exhibitors Herald.
- Nee Wong Coolie. (1927, April 18). The Kansas City Times, 11.
- Nee Wong Gent of the Orient. (1928). National Vaudeville Artists’ Year Book, 168.
- Nee Wong the Orient. (1927, November 27). Battle Creek Enquirer, 21.
- New “Topsy” on Stage. (1928, March 16). Oakland Tribune, 27.
- New Acts of the Week. (1906, June 16). Variety, 8.
- New Acts This Week. (1921, May 13). Variety, 21.
- Shun Tock & Yen Wah. (1922, January 28). Daily News, 17.
- Slide, A. (2012). The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville. University Press Of Mississippi.
- The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. (1925, September 25). Motion Picture News.
- This week performance. (1913, January). Variety.
- This week’s vaudeville reviews. (1914, February 11). Billboard, 10.
- Vaudeville. (1922, August 23). The New York Clipper, 11.
- Williams-Leon, T. (2001). The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed-Heritage Asian Americans (C. L. Nakashima, Ed.). Temple University Press.
- World’s Only Chinese Baritone. (1906, December 24). Keith’s News (Providence, R.I.), 3–4.
- Young, G. M. (1913, August). Philadelphia. Variety, 27.
- Figure References Lee Tung Foo in traditional Scottish Highlander costume, 1920s, Courtesy of California State Library.
- Lee Tung Foo in traditional Chinese dress, 1921, Courtesy of the California State Library
- “Shun Tock & Yen Wah,” Shun Tock & Yen Wah. (1922, January 28). Daily News, 17.
- “Chung Mei Minstrels,” Chung Mei Minstrels. (1928, December 28). The Hanford Sentinel, 5.
- “New ‘Topsy’ on Stage,” Chung Mei Minstrels. (1928, December 28). The Hanford Sentinel, 5.
- The program of Chung Mei Minstrels, Chung Mei Minstrels in Selma. (1925, April 3). The Selma Irrigator, 5.
- The Birth Certificate of Nee Wong,1942, Courtesy of the California State Library.
- “Another Vaudeville Assistant,” Another Vaudeville Assistant. (1938, November 7). The New York Clipper.
- The portrait of Nee Wong, Case, T., & Sponable, E. (Directors). (n.d.). Unseen Cinema Vol. 6: Amateur as Auteur.
- Nee Wong in National Vaudeville Artists’ Year Book, Nee Wong Gent of the Orient. (1928). National Vaudeville Artists’ Year Book, 168.
- Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 4 Sayı
- Başlangıç: 2020
- Yayıncı: Genç Bilge Yayıncılık
Sayıdaki Diğer Makaleler
Reflections on the direction of the theatre after the experience of the Corona Pandemic.
The “strange affinities”: early Chinese American Vaudevillians’ blackface performance
Frederick Ashton- a 20th century poet of dance
The anatomical analysis of basic stance in ballet