Dissertation Information for Daniel Kwang Lee NAME: - Daniel Kwang Lee
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- History
SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (2002)
ADVISORS: - Janice L. Reiff - Valerie Matsumoto
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Douglas McKay Kellner - Miriam Silverberg
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: Kimono and Jim Crow: The social significance of Asian and Asian American images in the popular media, 1941--1965
Abstract: This project looks at representations of Asians and Asian Americans in the U.S. popular media between World War II and the American entry into the Vietnam War. Its major aim is to investigate how the wider context of the Cold War and the civil rights movement influenced the production of these images, creating a tension between innovations and limits, as well as how these events imbued the representations with persuasive force.
To answer these questions, the paper examines primarily magazine and newspaper articles and Hollywood films. It sketches the range of images of Asian Americans that existed in the popular media through the period and also examines which were able to achieve exposure in the most commercially successful mediums. Through use of production and censorship records, it also considers the choices images-makers made about what to produce for the public. Lastly, by viewing a wide range of reviews in the mainstream, trade, and ethnic presses, as well as looking at the correspondence written to producers of these images, it speculates on how consumers reacted to these images, particularly to messages about race.
The project finds that from World War II, the popular media reversed its previous focus on Asian Americans' differences from mainstream Americans and highlighted their similarities. (This also applied to overseas Asian allies during World War II.) Particularly interned Japanese Americans from 1943 received a level of exposure and support for inclusion into mainstream society that was unprecedented for any racial minority group and which was an important means for changing the definition of America from a racial to an ideological basis.
Due to the geopolitical expansion of the United States into the Pacific, these images continued to achieve widespread visibility in the media through the 1950s and into the 1960s, especially through romances between White American men and Asian women. Though these images were limited in important ways, such as the imperative of Asians adopting mainstream American cultural values, they were unprecedented in introducing statements of racial tolerance into the media in commercially popular forms.
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calculated 2008-08-18 12:47:18
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