When I first picked up Jun Xing's book, my initial response was, "Oh great, another Ph.D. dissertation published into a book, another publisher inflicting some former graduate student's private passion upon an unsuspecting public." I did not expect to read anything that would actually inspire me to rent films either made by Asian Americans or dealing with Asian American issues. An encyclopedic summary was my anticipation: summary of what the currently hip theorists think about cinema and its relation to history and identity, and summary of Asian American representations thrown in for the niche market.

How relieved I was to read in the introduction that Xing was addressing both cultural and film studies students and the public at large. He states three objectives: 1) "to introduce to a wider public, or broaden the exposure of, the growing ranks of Asian American films"; 2) "to offer an alternative approach to the 'positive image' dilemma confronting Asian Americans as viewed by and considered in the media"; and 3) "to measure [Asian American cultural productions] closely against the historical and cultural contexts under which those productions were made." By having these objectives as a guide, Xing's book successfully addresses a public that rents and views movies, the community of artists making films now, and the critics whose job it is to evaluate the Asian American cinema tradition and Asian American films.

In order to meet his objectives, Xing must first establish how Asian Americans are viewed by the mainstream media as well as the historical and cultural context in which Asian Americans make films. Graduate students and scholars can read the first few sections and find the expected names of theorists such as bell hooks, Edward Said and Trinh T. Minh-ha and the not-so-expected references to Black and Chicano film-making and film critique. Xing is careful enough to provide a thorough analysis of the theorists and movements he cites, and this analysis leads to his framework for examining film through the intersections of history, identity and representation. Even if readers of critical and cultural studies had no interest in Asian American cinema per se, they would still find his model for reading media products useful.

The other part of the historical and cultural context that Xing tries to establish is "Hollywood" itself. The reader need not be a cultural studies student to appreciate the laundry list of stereotypes Xing presents to his readers. Xing is incredibly even-handed in his treatment of Asian American media portrayals, avoiding the temptation to make Hollywood the scapegoat for these stereotypes but not pulling any punches either. From Charlie Chan to Fu Manchu, Xing shows how these stereotypes typically present Asian Americans to the American cultural imagination: the passive, emasculated-yet-wise Asian American man and the evil, exotic, supra-sensual dragon lady that is the Asian American woman. Even though I have not seen a Charlie Chan movie nor Auntie Mame, I can easily relate Xing's analysis to other films that he did not mention. The Pink Panther and the character Kato first came to mind, and then The Crow with its depictions of an Asian male who was helpless while alive (but supernaturally endowed with martial arts prowess after resurrection) and a dragon lady villain (who scoops eyeballs from the heads of her victims and keeps them as treasures). Xing's later discussions of the positive image dilemma — the issue or whether or not to present only positive images of Asian Americans — makes these analyses of the Hollywood Asian much more illuminating.

The theoretical and historical context that these initial chapters provide for looking at films is enlightening, and the film critiques in later chapters are less theoretical but just as complete. For example, when Xing talks about the mainstream movie The Joy Luck Club, he cites both the recognition the film garnered by presenting Asian American women in a non-stereotyped context and the criticism it received for depicting Asian American men in a more stereotypical manner. If the beginning chapters of theory were not your bang, these critiques still make it easy to understand and appreciate the problem of big screen Asian American representation.

Xing's second objective stems from one of the largest problems for Asian American filmmakers: Must they always be sensitive to presenting positive images in order to correct stereotypes of the past? Instead of offering a simple solution to this dilemma, Xing investigates the positive image issue. Is the positive image just another way to attribute some brand of authenticity to the label of Asian American? How can a filmmaker be sure what constitutes the positive image of an Asian American? Wouldn't it be better to represent Asian Americans in their daily struggles, faults and all, rather than perpetuating images of a sanitized Asian America worthy of a white audience's approving eyes? Xing does not answer these questions through his own analysis but instead looks at how several Asian American filmmakers deal with these questions. The results vary incredibly, and Xing points out that the term "Asian American" is a conflation of several ethnic and national identities that have been historically treated as uniform and static populations. (For example, during WWII, all Asians were stigmatized as Japanese, and in the sixties, any Asian could be pointed out as "the enemy" on the basis of facial features alone). This is an important reminder of the situation many Asian Americans still face, subtly presented in an impressive survey of Asian American films.

Implicit in Xing's third objective of exposing Asian American films to a wider public is his desire to create an audience for Asian American film. Using jazz as an example of an art form that has attained mainstream popularity, he claims that Asian American cinema cannot become widely accepted until it has also acquired the nurturing support of an informed and critical audience. Throughout his examination of films that can be considered "Asian American," Xing thankfully avoids playing the "Hollywood is bad, independent minority cinema is good" game. He uses the same set of questions for independent and Hollywood filmmaking institutions as well as for mainstream recognition boards and ethnic film festival organizers. By his doing so, I feel that I am in a position to answer these questions, and therefore can decide whether or not I am angry or optimistic, critical or understanding. Without making me an expert on Asian American cinema, Xing has given me a language and a history with which I can actually think about issues of assimilation, aesthetics, and the politics of filmmaking and film criticism.

After reading Asian America Through the Lens: History, Representation, Identity I gained a firm respect for these filmmakers. I now feel as if I missed a profound experience in not seeing the films Xing discusses, and am prepared to not repeat the mis-readings of the past. If Jun Xing's implicit intention is to create a supportive and sensitive audience for the films and the burgeoning Asian American cinema tradition, his book has already taken a successful step in that direction.