Identities in Motion: Asian American Film and Video

This innovative book shows how Asian American filmmakers and videomakers frame and are framed by history, how they define and are defined by cinematic projections of Asian American identity. Combining close readings of films and videos, sophisticated cultural analyses, and detailed production histories that reveal the complex forces at play in the making and distributing of these movies, Identities in Motion offers an illuminating interpretative framework for assessing the extraordinary range of Asian American films produced in North America. Peter X Feng considers a wide range of films - from feature film genres such as romantic comedies and the detective film to ethnographic film, documentaries, avant-garde video, the newsreel, travelogues, even home movies. Feng begins by examining movies about three crucial moments that defined the American nation and the roles that Asian Americans would play in it: the arrival of Chinese and Japanese women in the Old West and Hawai'i; the incorporation of the Philippines into the U. S. empire; and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Succeeding chapters discuss cinematic depictions of ideological conflicts among Asian Americans and of the complex forces that compel migration, extending his nuanced analysis of the intersections of sexuality, ethnicity, and nationalist movements. Throughout Identities in Motion, Asian American identity emerges as constantly in motion, expressing the diversity and complexity of Asian Americans - including Filipinos, Indonesians, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Laotians, Indians, and Koreans -from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.