BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

Feng’s title is ingeniously layered: “Screening Asian Americans” refers to at least three ways in which Asian Americans are screened – how they are evaluated, how their images are projected, and how they are concealed (because to screen also means to be hidden from view). Fifteen contributors are divided into three sections: Part I focuses on how Asian bodies are represented on the screen, Part II is a historic look at how and where Asian American media and filmmaking fits into the larger cinematic industry, and Part III situates Asian American film in various “sociopolitical and aesthetic contexts, including the documentary tradition, avant-garde film and video, the Toronto art scene, Asian American literature, and diasporic audiences,” but does not in any way attempt to regulate a limiting sense of coherence or definition. Cover to cover, Screening Asian Americans is fabulous.

Reviews: “Diasporic Proliferation or: We’re Here, There and Everywhere … and Growing,” Push >, NAATA: National Asian American Telecommunications Center (now the Center for Asian American Media), 2002

“New and Notable APA Books,” AsianWeek, September 26, 2002

Readers: Adult

Published: 2002