Thats coming up next on booktv. Thanks for that kind introduction. Its truly an honor to be here at the museum of chinese and america, an institution that has done so much to increase public understanding of not only the chinese immigrant experience in the United States, but also of asianamericans and the asian diaspora more generally. Im particularly, im an editor at the new york times, and i mostly traffic in words. And do careful editing. Im very attentive. I try to be to nuances of word selection, diction, syntax but also meaning. But im also very, very aware of the acute and enduring power thank you very much of images. And what was most striking to me in looking at these two books is the immense visual array of whats been amassed here which is really something quite distinctive. I dont think in any of the books that ive read that arabamericans, that asianamericans have i seen such a visually rich and, frankly, disturbing collection of images. So i think thats very impressive. Im going to very briefly introduce because their biographies are in the program our three speakers this evening, and theyll each proceed to give a brief presentation about why they decided to write their book ors or in the case or collect their documents, these artifacts, and then well have some moderator q abe from me and most excitingly, i hope, some questions from you, the audience. To my immediate right is john tchen, hes a historian, your rater and writer, founder of this museum. New york china town history project. My apologies. Its hard to remember. [laughter] i remember it when it was down on east broadaway and then yeah. And then in the school building. Yeah. A very rich history of now almost 35 years. He is also the founding director of the asianpacific American Studies Program and institute at nyu and founding faculty member of the department of social and cultural analysis. Jack has just completed a critical archival study of images and essays, yellow peril, the subject of the discussion this evening. Hes also the Senior Historian on the chinese exclusive period for the New York Historical society, and his next book will be published alongside the the exhibition. To jacks right is dylan yeats, doctoral candidate in history at nyu. He specializes in United States history with a focus on the political demonology and structures of authority. He writes and teaches about american politics, asianAmerican History and islam phobia. Hes also a public historian and a sightseeing guide who is licensed to give tours in new york city. Id like to take one sometime. All right. [laughter] finally, at the end of the table is dr. Jack shaheen. His lectures and writings have focused on negative imimagines ander stereotypes of asians, blacks and other minorities and disadvantaged groups in the world. He has been a professional film consultant on popular on very popular hits like syrian that and three kings which id like to learn more about, and hes received several awards for his contributions to cultural understanding. And his new book, a is for arab, draws from a trove of of objects and materials from a collection that he had donated and deposited at new york university. This is a special collection of more than 4,000 images including motion pictures, cartoons and Television Programs as well as toys and games featuring antiarab and antimuslim depictions. So were going to actually start can jack shaheen, and then well move to john tchen and dylan yeats. Thank you. Well, thank you for that very gracious introduction. Im extremely pleased to return to this museum. Wiz here i was here right after it opened a few years ago and was impressed with the commonality that exists within asianamericans and arabamericans and some of the stereotypes that theyve had to endure over all these years, and i want to compliment my dear friends and colleagues, dylan yeats and john tchen, on their new book, yellow peril, which is a brilliant book. I couldnt put be it down. Professor tchen offered to buy me a latte if i plugged the book tonight [laughter] so ill take him up on it as soon as this session has ended. But seriously, the a is for arab book is based on four decades of work whereby i, along with my dear wife bernice, went about collecting images of arabs in american popular culture. More than 2,000 films and television shows, hundreds of comic books, toys and games, cartoons. And it all began innocently, actually. I never intended to look at this particular topic. I dont look arab, you know . I have green ideas, and shaheen sounds irish. So it was sort of nothing that really appealed to me until one day i was upstairs, it was in the mid 70s, and my children came running up the steps saying, daddy, daddy, theyve got bad arabs on. And i really didnt know quite what to do except i went downstairs and there on the Television Set we saw cartoons like porky pig, popeye, bugs bunny counting all these arabs. And i thought, well, isnt this interesting . Cartoons vilifying arabs this the mid 70s. So i asked our children, michael and michelle, if they would be so kind and document all of these images for their dear father. So on saturday morning id be having coffee with my wife, and id hear, daddy, daddy, and id run downstairs was at the time i didnt have a vcr, and i would start writing frantically about these cartoons. Well, today at the library at nyu youll find literally dozens of childrens cartoons which show the vilification of arabs with pork key pig, bugs bunny. I brought with me, i couldnt resist. One of main offenders was disney. I just brought with me one visual. This is an old disney 1947 cartoon called crazy with the heat where you have arab with the semitar trying to do away with donald duck and goofy. And today my next book, if i have time to finish, will deal with the cartoon arab because ive documented more than a thousand childrens cartoons that in one way or another show the arab as the evil enemy other. Whats interesting about tonight is that this is not a session about one group of people or another. Its a session about the vilification of a people. Of any group of people. And what goes into that vilification process. The sins of mission and commission. How you dehumanize a people by excluding their humanity, be they ail yep or arab. Alien or arab. How you show only the negative attributes. You take a grain of sand, and this that grain of sand you in that grain of second you take out all of the sort of pieces that dont fit, and you say these pieces represent the people. And you turn it into a sandstorm. So that when you look at images of arabs, you know, you have the terrorists, you have the sheikh, you have the boisterous bargainer, you have of you have the women who are portrayed as being submissive. Politicians love to pick up on that, you know . Anthony weiners wife, huma, im not quite sure. Yes, i think Rush Limbaugh or someone said, of course, you know, shes married hes married to a muslim, no wonder he gets away with all these things. Muslim women are submissive. And i thought to myself, really . Thats new to me. And you could look at, you know, the role of asian women, theyre submissive, boisterous belly dancers and sexual images and is forth. So there are many commonalities which i hope well get into during this discussion. And the other thing that ive always talked about with my students and here at nyu and i must say im deeply gratefulful to nyu, professor tchen and the people at the Kevorkian Center for accepting my collection and utilizing it and sharing it with students and faculty. Its a wonderful resource material. But getting back to the commonalities and the differences, when you vilify a people, innocence dies. You compare Saddam Hussein to hitler, it makes it that much easier to go to war in iraq. Over and over again, you repeat the same imagings. Images of sameness. The sins of mission and commission. And so you dehumanize a people primarily by excluding family. In other words, an asian or an arab couple cannot be aptly married, they cant have children, they cant go out and go on a picnic, okay . Because if you do that, if you see a family together, you know, going to mcdonalds and having french fries, all of a sudden they become like us. And in order to make sure that never happens, you exclude family from the images, and you focus only on those grains of sand that portray a people and their culture as backward and bar bar barbaric. And a line that has been used over and over again and we still hear it today is those people do not value human life as much as we do. Hmm . Whether its the jews being vilified during world war ii as an excuse for the holocaust, the chinese for the chinese exclusion act, the japanese for the incarceration of japaneseamericans during world war ii, blacks for the justification for lin lynchings where white families could actually go to lynchings and have a picnic and enjoy themselves as young black men were being hanged . How does that happen . So history has all of these lessons for us. And our goal, our challenge is to really learn from those lessons. And im hoping that the dialogue that we have tonight will take us, you know, not only revealing the warts and the disturbing images and the consequences of those images, but possibly and hopefully some solutions as to how we can best shatter that mythology and move forward so that we can unite rather than sort of split ourselves apart and point and say, you people are not as humane as us, etc. , etc. , etc. So with that, i give you dylan and jack. Its a delight to finally be on a panel talking about these issues. This is something that dylan, jack shaheen and i have been going over for years and years and years but really with the original collection of the films, the clips, the sound bits that we have, and were now able to talk about in public. So really delighted to have this opportunity. Let me just tell you a little bit about how this began for a medium, and then well talk about some of the connections. Dylan and i are going to do a little tag team here with our time. I was the first one in my family born in this country. My parents were refugees, and i found myself growing up in the prairie of, outside of chicago. Watching black and white tv and seeing flash gordon and few man chu films and charlie chan films, and i could not figure out what was going on in this stuff. [laughter] it just didnt make any sense to me. So i realize i must have been traumatized or something at that moment, because ive spent, i think, most of of my life really trying to unpack stuff and trying to make some sense of what was going on. So in some ways that meant that id be collecting tidbits and fragments from things that are just like in the air floating or comments that people would make or things that i would find in a used bookstore. And i, as a process, just kind of expanded. So i kind of expanded from looking at what happened to chineseamericans to also thinking about japaneseamericans to also thinking about what happened in california with other asian groups and then to opening up to the americas and thinking about the larger context because chinese were also excluded in canada and also vim ma story actions towards other asians. So this became a larger and larger project as time went on. So in some ways in this book, yellow peril, an archive of antiasian fear is really something that has been the consequence of these decades of exploration. Looking this from the sweet spots we think of in terms of the chinese exclusion act and japanese incarceration and concentration camps in the United States, but looking back deeper, what are the roots of this. We go far back. You see the pride in the book, but we brought it forward, and well talk about some of this. Let me just say, briefly, and then ill pass it over to joan. In the collection process, of course, theres a lot of good, and for doing this and noting, i think in the world of journalism, we think of word and images, what we deal with, electronic media, and, certainly, it sounds and smells and in the sense of a touch, also deeply communicated. In terms of ideas, oriental otherness, and when i use the word ordinary , reasonable , and oriental, we are talking far eastern, geographically confusing, the far east, meaning japan, china, korea, maybe the philippines, were not sure, so america senses east and west. Its very confusing. Its east on the the point of the view of the earth, and the middle east, and theres jews, for that matter, but they are seen as orientals, so this category of orientals is quite significant, and theres not only this word of oriental and look of oriental, but the sound of oriental. I brought a little fun thing for you to listen to. It actually a 1930 sound bit from a cartoon called the laundry blues, and this is the very beginning, and i wish we could show the video, but youll go home and take a look at this. Its the opening in a chinese laundry, and its cats and mice, you know, a laundryman with long pigtails, and this is the music that it starts with. Okay, you get the idea. [laughter] this is the kind of thing i grew up with and many of you did, but even if youre a new immigrant coming into the country now, this is part of the exposure of becoming an american. Its not the part we tend to talk about, but its part that you begin to acquire. Its a certain kind of cultural and historical literacy people gain, and its not just flowing it in your brain and being tested for it. Its actually feeling a sense that with the gong and this kind of mincing music, that something oriental and strange and exotic and different is going to happen, and that sets up a whole set of problems because that can be seen as either benign or comical or dancing cats and mice with pigtails, or it could be seen as something really dangerous, and so unamerican that we really have to be weary, and, of course, were talking about the range, and its a visceral response, like a programmed response. Its not just about a rational kind of, oh, you know, im now hearing this and this and that. Its not that. The book is about that. We also think of the collections about that. We want to kind of encourage all of you to be kind of digging through your papers and archives and things that you notice and see in bookstores, and begin to kind of develop a yellow peril collections project at large. We have to make this understanding palpable, and phil will talk about the next round. Okay. Thank you. Its really a thrill to be here, and, thank you, everyone, for coming out. Im asked a lot about why i worked so long on projects like this because, as you may be able to tell, im not asianamerican, and, therefore, in theory, not the sort of subject to the malicious nature of the stereotypes, and i actually started getting involved in this stuff because i almost randomly took a class with jack in the class of 2002. The pictures are coming. [laughter] and i was, like, you know, i just moved to new york and was interested in new york history, figured id take his class, and it really opened my eyes to an aspect of American History i was not familiar with before, and asianAmerican History, generally, and i was really impressed with just how much mainstream American Culture is obsessed with these images, and more than just obsessedded is their many decades and centuries of documentation about how whiteness in particular have been sort of defined against this fantasy or yenalness, and that was something that i had not thought about before, and i think my experience was similar to what many other people are when they get into this material, which is its both surprising and not surprising because as someone socializes in the society, it all sort of rings true, but we never ever really step out and reflect on what it means so over the last, you know, 12 years, ive been looking to keep working and they were watching the implications of some of this fobility of thinking and the stereotypes and traditions define what americans, what americans think of themselves as, and the implications as both suggested are scary, and, you know, weve seen the erosion of the political and civil liberties, and weve seen rushes to war, and excessive civilian collateral damage, and all sorts of other changes. We watch islamphobia rise up, not that it was not racism before, but its taken on more in the last decade, and that got me thinking of what is latent in the mainstream america and culture that allows for people to be duped in this way, and as i was experiencing watching that in our country, i was also reading a lot of the early asianamerican Movement Material trying to connect racism here with Foreign Policy, and that argument makes sense all the way back in American History where forms of domestic racism and stereotypes really affect the sort of u. S. Foreign policy in general and the willingness to invade or the willingness to allow for the deft of less than human people, and so one of the things that weve been trying to do by gatt and the key threads of that and the idea of the coming war, and i think it really ill lot straits the problem for all americans even if they dont think of themselves at the direct targets targets theres christian superiority, and in that context as problems arise, as Foreign Policy fails or has Economic Policy that fails, theres no room for introspection for selfreflection and blaming someone else, theres a long history of blaming people we think of of eastern or oriental we try to mask in the book, and it shifts depending on different moments in time, but theres always always their fault instead of our fault, and so i think everyone should be invested in trying to selfreflect for themselves and promote analysis, that sort of lowers the stakes of that context, exposes it as a misunderstanding, and sometimes a purposeful deception so that we can look with fresher eyes dress this rather than hunting phantoms. The term was coined, and 2014 is an important year, perhaps more than other parts in the world, especially europe, and i was interested, very, very much in how 1914, a century ago, a period of empire, american empires not acknowledged, and defining empyres, octoberman empire, obviously, had more than seven centuries controlled the islamic world, brought to an end, obviously, by world war i, and cartoon in particular that you selected that cartoon is a depiction interestingly enough, you know, i thought the term peril, i thought it had to do i just assumed surely it has to do with antiasian immigrant sentiments. Not at all. Its only 20th century depiction and relates to the japanese expansion as it was at the time in east asia as a result of the industrialization modernization, and what that meant at the time, an ailing china at rirveg of political collapse, and so i wanted to ask each of you to what extent are they wrapped up in empire and state building . Directly connected. I mean, theres a great quote about lincoln saying how much Public Opinion matters, you know, in the United States, and when we go to war, and particularly the recent cop flick in iraq and afghanistan, easy primarily because for decades, we had perceived arabs and muslim as subhuman, not at the yellow peril, but as the green menace, as the ones we perceive, you know, the redmen, segued into the green menace, and its what amazes me still is so many people think politicians are immune, and journalists with integrity are immune to these, and thats not true, stereotypes, once embedded in our see key function like a poiseen yows virus, and its difficult to get rid of them, and they escalate and use as justification to advance the goals of the empire or whomever. Yes, i agree completely, and theres the image in the book referredded to, but there are different angels that represent the european country, and the arch angel, michael, tries to rally them together, and on the horizon is by di riding a dragon threaten ping across the valley. Right . [laughter] he did it in part because germany would be on the losing end of that. It was an appeal to common christianity whiteness to advantage germanys access to Chinese Markets and territories, and so i think these are very much connected. If you dont mind, id like to show the book because you mentioned world war i, and this is actually a book called rising tide of color, which was written by an american ewe genesis, and prefaced from the National Museum of history, and this is an incredibly popular book, and theres an arrow with the rifle and sort of chinese or asian figure or african, and they are rising up, and sorry, im not good with microphones and he says the only victor of world war i was japan because it e exposed to the colonized people of the world that the whites were not actually in control, and that they were not superior and japan was going to unite all the colonized people to overthrow european colonialism, and it would be terrifying and those people would come back and punish them, and funding many of them, Anticolonial Movement across, and we dont hear ever think about that. , that history, how important colonialism was, and how much perspective cultural products created, but the response then, and i think this goes back to the point about the impact on, you know, fantasies of the west, generally, is that this pervasive fear that the colonizers come and punish, and that setup makes any appeal for human rights or justice or freedom sounds like on a front, you know, to the very survival of the west itself, and so i think these are very much wrapped together. A central figure in the opening of the book is the dangerous amphibious dr. , and its perceived in the american imagination, but look at as many thousands of millions of books out there. You can pick them audiotape for a little money at any used bookstore, but also to watch this, and not so much to revel in it and believe it, but to see, really, how the stereotypes played out, and furs of all, was seen as evil incarnage, and he had the advantage of western education, and cambridge, oxford, and mar vard. All the more menacing. [laughter] yeah, right. [laughter] and he was a model minority. [laughter] he achieved well. He went to the dark side because he was a a pseudonym of author ward who actually authored the piece. A british, kind of local color writer, and once he saw the headlines for the, and among them, the missionaries in china and the foreign incursions in china, and parts in china, theres rebellion, and a number of western, and that talks about and that is the headline hugely all over the western world, and british empire, and reaction gave him the sense theres an audience out there to imagine some kind of inscrutable evil that was, that was bind the rebellion, and also any resistance to the expansion of the western colonialism, and various, parts of anywhere in asia as well, and we see in, as interesting thing is that, a, he has control hes in the mask, trying to recover the mask and sword of kaun, and hes mentioned again and again, and whats that about . Of course its about the lightning rage that kaun an various armies, you know, were able to sweep throughout central asia, but into the very doorstep; right . Know maddic people have been less threat to any kind of settles to the stages, and settled nation, and so also the image was that the hordes, the faceless horse all wear different costumes from hollywood; right . Took all the costumes from all the movies of arabs and japanese, and they threw them together on top of the extras; right . These are the dangerous horsemen that he controls, and by having the authority of kaun, they will be revived and conquer, and who knows where else after. This part of it, quite vindictive is the death ray that he has. Its an electronic ray used, not against the violence, but to have little treen pied heros come deer this death ray and basically shoot it down on hordes and kill everybody. Its really a weapon. I have a prevoktive question, if i may. Is there a danger in the projects in collapsing across much time and space an incredibly diverse array of negative images . I ask that, and upstairs, the innocent exbase here, theres a spread, and during world war ii, evil from the chinese, our allies, and tempt to churn and delineate this, and how do you tell friends from enemy . Similarly, we see in the middle east, Foreign Policy is turned on a dime, you know, and we also forget that our ought yens, not arabs, of course, but relation changed dramatically over the years that relates to the overthrow in 1953, inflation of the shaw, overthrow in 199, the images wax and wean, and not stable. How in the projects do you account for that waxing and waning and what do you attribute it to . We used to have bedouin ban dates attacking, and they were going to civilize the arab, and that sort of faded into the state, and i want to mention the african wars, and, of course, they were there, and, of course, the cowboys and indian, similarlies there. Where the indians so, you know, attacking the call calvary, its all the same, different costume, but the plot is the same. It involved, early on, i think, the fantasy, but never had early on in characters like jafar, you know, in aladen or songs like i come from a land of a far away place where the cam mel roams and they cut off your ear if they dont like your face, its barbaric, but, hey, its home. I remember talking to this is the 90s. In is the 90s. I remember talking to people another disney that did not think anything was wrong with the song, but thats another story. [laughter] less why we complain. It involves primarily the oil embargo, the image of the shake, and instead of it being just a sloppy, shovey guy with those he couldnt please because he was everyonetous, it was financing terrorist, and they took on an identity of all palestinians equal terror, terror. Again, the Political Landscape changed as early, you know, 40 years ago, the movie called adventure in iraq where they were portrayed as devil worshiper, and then you had you had those hiding out, and so i think technology, number one, and world events number two, and all history thrown in, but thought, per persistent, and throughout asian and arab and others with exceptions in the end. You had a great question, with exceptions in the images that we seed, the words conveyed. Talking about blatant sigh that exist and images are like a data base that are there, and in any given historical moment, and they can be shifted quickly, and the shifting is important. Under girding it is a racialization of not being able to distinguish one group from the other, and if the groups are taggedded to be bad one moment and sundayenly good the other moment, but they all appear to be from the appearance some kind of asian, kind of foreign looking, cant tell the difference, then, in fact, these Foreign Policy, trade policy can be immigration policy can be manipulated very quickly, very easily, depending on whether, you know, henry of time and life gets the feeling because he grew up in china as a missionary and wanted to reverse theism the image of chinese, and if they was there in that moment and that that impact, he would weigh in. Its historical and racialization in some ways are almost there, and the configurations, both socalled good and bad, and a lot is tied to the idea of racial and sexual stress. The patterns that jack talks about is of evil, nonwhite males so different and gruesome looking that they are really dangerous and a threat to whitehood. The gender and sexual strength is a key part that makes it powerful. Okay. I was going to say that i think that the pop culture representations need to be sway applause baling, but the mentality is there, but it doesnt matter who the target is at any one moment because people are prepared that there is an evil plot because theres a question of the specifics that are coming. What we try to do with the book, which is that, and only skims the surface and supposed to be largely inspirational so people fill in and follow the leads they want and fill in the blanks for themselves and get aceps for how much material there is and how much existing scholarship there is that has not been sympathized, but it is available, and we wanted to show that, but we wanted to suggest that theres a tradition that is being created and recreated generation to generation. Theres a, you know, i think in the United States, we could say theres an actual political tradition of coming up with scapegoats, whether or not, you know, the communists or terrorists, whether, you know, the east asian embrace capitalism or reject on capitalism, and any of those are used for political purposes here, and then theres ray long tradition nay follow in and in terms of creating a fantasy of western civilization, tradition there too, and whats important about keeping that the tradition, is that theres a set of institutions and practices and set of the assumptions that as the world shifts and can no longer accommodate that, i think, you know, at least historically looking at the United States after the collapse of the union, there was a scramble to see how to justify the military buildup, and they found ha the think tanks found a lot of potential enemies to build back, and, yeah, so theres a certain layering that happens over time. The good news is that if its a tradition, as opposed to some sort of inherent characteristic of some imagined american personality, then we can change the tradition, and we can disman tell is by acknowledging theres a sort of pattern, and thats what we are trying to do. Off the point, next question, it marks the 50th anniversary of 1965 reforms to the immigration nationallalty acts overalling the nature of American Immigration policy for example, or persians are not arabs, nor are turks, and that ignorance persists, and, yet, statement, youve seen at the same time youve seen arabamericans rise to the highest level of political office, and the asianamerican side as well. Yes and no. In the cinema, fewer film vilify arabs than ten years ago. I think its gotten much worse on two prompts and worried , concerned, actually, and one is television. With a series starting after 9 11, with series like 24 and homeland portraying muslimamericans and arabamericans as terrorists. They had nothing to do with never and focus on the mosque. Im an arabamerican christian, but amazed how many people think im muslim. I just say, yes, i would be nice to have a mosque here on the island. You know, they are silent. [laughter] i think until the time comes when i make that statement, and someone responds, yes, it would be nice, you know, weve got great synagogues, catholic churches, ect. , ect. , ect. , and it would be great if we had a mosque in and around the island, but television, i find, has continually hammered home this message, and, if i may be so bold to say, fox news and republican candidates for president have used did and special groups use this as an excuse to create fear in the hearts and minds of Many Americans a those organizations leek the clergy, and, i mean, id love to have oneonone with bill oreilly, not on fox news, but, here, a mutual place. I welcome that, bill, if you are watching, or joe because hes just as guilty, or, you know, who runs hardball . Chris matthews. These men have gone out of the their way to say horrific things about those, and the fact of the rhetoric, talking about words, that the rhetoric goes on uncontested, and no one challenges them, and it concerns me, and in spite of the fact that there is this heightened awareness. Its especially true now. George allen said candidacy in virginia derailed when he infamously referredded to southeastern americans, and we have republican governors of louisiana and south carolina, of south asian ancestry. One is a catholic, and the other is seethe. The conservative republican i think its different asianamerican than it is with arabamericans. Not so much arabamericans, but muslimamericans. I think, you know, i think muslim more americans are under the microscope much, much more. Its different for them, really is. And the election of barack obama, his father was muslim, and worse than that interview . I think the president , with all do respect, and im a supporter of the president , but the only president to live in a predominantly Muslim Country in his childhood, and the president , at some point before he steps out, should say, 2530 of the American People think im a muslim. What if i was . So what. What difference does it make . Hes not said that. He needs to say that. I may be caused by not saying it it allows a rhetoric thats but youre right about the asian. I think the asianamerican community, with all do respect, is much more organized and the george w. Bush deserves yet for the statement he made after 9 11. A tremendous amount of credit. I aloud applaud him in the book, and he really had that speech after 9 11 was beautifully done by the president. Id like to put this question in Historical Context in which changes do not happen automatically, but happen because the groups enter into American Life more and more, and so did we stalk about racial jews or other groups, its a process. When irish and jews were thought to be nonwhite, it took them entering in to different areas of American Culture and politics to basically contest bit by bit, you know, piece by piece, stereotypes and exclusions and attitudes. It took a long time. It took a long time. These changes dont happen intrinsically because they say, oh, i did that, i shouldnt have done that, but structured into power relationships and vested interest, and it takes the pushback in all different arenas for the change to happen. I would say, in part to answer the question, now that theres been increasing deracialization and desegregation, theres been a consequence of pushbacks of people organizing around it, and im not saying it was only asianamericans who fought, but africanamericans made the difference for asianamericans. He was the cosponsor and takes a coalition of people really critically saying these immigration laws are not right. He was critical and the 1924 immigration agent that basically was cons conscious consequent and said it was nor kick europeans who get the most opportunity to come to the country, eastern, southern european imgrants, after asians had been excluded from the country. Had a huge impact on all parts and cities of the country. It was really also understanding the connection between antijewish, antieastern european, antisouthern european racism, and linked it to saying there has to be a fairness across the board for different groups, and so the pushback is really, i think, how change actually has begun to happen on different kinds of levels. Question for jack shaheen. You were surprising on a very complex film, and i will not ask you about what it was like to work with george clooney, although id like to [laughter] but you did choose to work on a film where the center, you know, the central theme, ultimately, is the threat, possible or actual, of radicalized religious and militancy, how did you grapple with that, and why did you decide to work on that project . I worked on the project primarily because they asked me and felt i could make a difference in the screen play, and because i had a tremendous amount of republic for the director and writer, and had you seep the screen play before, the screen play, when i read it, i thought nothing could be done to save it, particularly the film, and my wife did not want me coconsult on the film. I remember sitting with him in l. A. After e had called to consult. I didnt think it was him, and, sure, he asked me i couldnt say no, but i salt down, and i said, i dont want a muslimamerican family or arabamerican family to see this film and to walk out of the theater ashamed of their faith or their cull churk and i said, would you kindly take that into consideration during the editing process, and i remember i said all over the archives, the library, and i dont know details to waves wrong and what should be done to, in my opinion, to make it be more evenhanded film, and out in l. A. , my wife is in the add yen, i got a call from the office, and he said, we have the film ready for you to see. I looked at my wife and family and said, oh, no, dear god. I have to see the film, and then i went, and i sat in the screening room. I was the only one there. They took me off somewhere, and in santa monica, sat down, there was the projection, no one else. I watched the film, and i almost cried because so many scenes were omitted from the film, and i remember he came in and he said to me afterwards, what did you think . I said i cant talk. I need five minutes. Please leave me alone. He walked out. The poor guy. He came back. He said, would you please tell me what you think . I hugged him. He said lets go. Its a twoway street. Steven is a tremendous amount of credit. I cant help but notice theres a book here entitled red chinas fighting whores. Which period is it from . Period of imty. I couldnt help but notice at the back of the book, it saws withdrawn, library deemed it unworthy of retaping it. I want to ask about the politics of shame, only in recent decades, for example, have images, for example, of lynchings, studied very, very closely as kind of not only kind of social documents, but also documents that are worth, in some ways, reproducing in exhibition catalogs, obviously, in very, very somber ways, but in asemibling the material, i guess especially for jack chan, i want to ask the question, did you encounter a certain kind of reluctance among people, like, well, why collect this stuff . Lets forget about it, withdraw it. Well, its a very interesting question because when we collect the stuff, its forgotten and hidden away, and people is become embarrassed by it, which is terrific. That shows some change. Statement, at the same time, the underlying patterns are still there so that some of the more blatant characterizations and caricatures and imagery may have subsided and put away, but, in fact, the incats andhow societys scapegoated or pair know ya gets expressed, those patterns are actually still very much there. You get triggered in different moments. For example, i just get an email saying ucla and usc students have been organizing against racial slurs on their campuses. Thats, first of all, unusual for campuses to get together and agree to do that. These slurs, we see, also, not insignificant, but i think the students were very aware that theres some deeper attitudeses that are in the slurs themselves, and so it may not take necessary a visual farm, but could be in other forms that then e result, and then actually play a very toxic role on campuses, so these things are kind of there, and they are under the ground and in the air, and when the moment strikes, they have a powerful force. I think goal sel to talk about it and detoxify. Thats why the strategies are important, and they have to be cared for in the right content own hope by having a box to put that people will not mistake that as, oh, you know, trying to promote this propaganda that as the group, but people are quite amazed to see the kinds of patterns we find across different time periods, traditions, that were not really understood or known about, and so by actually making them pulpble, we can understand exactly whats going op. Thank you. Very thoughtful. Youve been asking questions all evening, i suspect, but i want to open it up to the wonderful audience here at the museum of chinese and america, and see if we have questions for the distinguished panelists. The lady in the back, please. Is there someone who can help with the microphone . Thank you so much. Good evening, question for jack. So doesnt mean anything to me, i didnt grow up watching it, and what other contemporary shows, images that i mean, i dont watch that much television, but whats out there to promote . I hear a lot of political rhetoric, and the financial crisis, all the things, jobs moving to china, and, you know, just wondering how chinas taking over, but what are some of the contemporary images in the media that portray us in a negative light . Well, the image may shift from group to group, and i have a feeling people in the audience may have thoughts about this. I have two examples. One is the remake of the film red dawn that came out a few years ago, which started out its a remake of a film who originally the soviets were dropping into some middleamerican town, and kind of surprising america, and basically taking over. This remake started out with basically chinese dropping into a colorado town, i believe, and really the young men who save the town from the horrible technological invasion where all the computers and electronics were wiped out. With the pushback from china, which now, of course, has a very large market share of the global, kind of media markets, but also owns a lot of american computers, and they dont like this, for understandable regions, and shifted the bad guys, recut it, so it was the north koreans. [laughter] its easy to shoot the most isolated country on earth. [laughter] so for cheap picks, they made a different enemy, but in some ways, its a good example of how the evil enemy shifts very quickly. Huh. Theres many, many other examples. Why i ask that, theres a good example, a wonderful book about nazi cinema, and he writes about how hollywood kept doing business with nazi germany, primarily for economic regions. They did not want to lose the german awe yeps, and would make compromises with the german conflict or consul based in l. A. They basically ran the film, so thinking of this and that, its all linked together saying, and the motivation and economic front is there, one of the reasons, again, why collections such as these are so important. Another question. Go here and back to this side. The topic [audience boos] [inaudible] [inaudible] i know my fathers hes in the korean war, was harassed, and that could happen again. Something thats worth taking a look at. Thank you for the observation. Two questions. Here first and then this gentleman, and then you. More of a comment than a question i had is that the [inaudible] these are the images we dont see. I came out of the pacific rim, actually, thinking about that, seeing that last year, its a movie that takes place in hong kong, no chinese characters, but a guy named chan, and arms deal er or something, so its interesting about what images and the pushback has in genders which is a very sophisticated reiteration of saying that, that the white people take care of it, and, you know, to me, that movie, in many different ways shows the most largest inmoo vaition, came out completely steamed. My friend were like, youre crazy, man. Im like, you realize what the film told you . That were going to need these people to save us. It takes place in asia, and, you know, many other things about the movie, but, to me, this is so important for the record what chairchgedded before and whats no longer political acceptable in the discussion, but the most interesting is the things that underpin that get into films today. And their responses. This gentleman at the end of the row had a question, i believe. I have not read it, but i dont really have a question, but passed by, and so as the young filter, you know, completely different when i think of racism, and essentially, you know, and its easy to compartmentalize this area or, you know, these racism dynamics, whatever you want to call them, but what caught my eye was the word that i stopped, and i came across this, and when i was 15, i got a personal computer, and i down loaded a lot of free music and there was one lecture by one, and he [inaudible] regardless of how bad they seem, they are forces that generated reality, and that it will definitely hurt. However, you know. If i could ask quickly, following in this question, on this observation very, very perspective. One thing about depictions of africanamericans has been that the civil war era, the citizenship or the belongingsness to the american policy, whether that belongingsness was adequately represented or acknowledged, leaving that aside, theres the same element of the foreign versus the native, and so could you elaborate a little bit . I want to say one more thing. Please. The word american hard to believe, but american is an ambiguous word, and, you know, forward in the conversationings but what is american . Theres a project to comment a little bit about what you staided and comparing that to the trouble history of africanamericans. Well, i always say that i just read a review by a book dealing with the family, who, back in one of the closest jabs is brought to america 300 years ago. There was hyingenned awareness by some whites way back then as to the prejudices that existed. I think the africanamerican experience probably and what i want to do sometime is put together a class, do this on thee most racist films in the hit resist of cinema, the top ten. One the one, at the top, and the one you use to compare similarities with all of these, but is the birth of the nation, and that film and in terms of the imagery, in terms of the political, in that its brought about the three emerge of the kkk, why the coo clux clan, all the sudden was diminishing in membership, but all the sudden this one film brought more and more men out in white sheets causing more problems in the south and more deaths of arabamericans. This is the film that in, you know, Woodrow Wilson saw, and never said a word about the racism because it was produced by a friend of his, and went to college. Written a book called the clan, and so i think in terms of the images, particularly in the past, if you look at the images, take asians and americans and others and use birth of a nation as an example, build on that, theres a lot of similarities, particularly the political consequences that happened with the demonization process. Of course, there are a lot of differences in some of the ways that africanamericans are depright the, but theres a lot of connections that we often miss, so, for instance, during world war ii, people who wore suits and contributics of american white sue prep sis policies, and tag as sympathizers, and some did support japans rhetoric against impeer imperialism, and a lot of the story has been forgotten, but it was used to then make africanamericans who were advocating for against segregation enemies of the state essentially, and then in the same thing, of course, happened in the 60s and 70s where the threat of communism or third world liberation movements used to also tarnish and spy on and imprison civil rights activists and antiwar activists, and, of course, all that architecture of the surveillance that accompanies fears of subversion is used equally against sort of against minority communities as well as muslim communities, i think they are all actually a lot more connected, and what we wanted to do is try to show how this tradition connects african african everyone in different ways and deal with it together, i guess. So were talking about triangulation in which otherness operates in very complicated roles, sexuality, gender roles, all of these things come into play. So thats one quick point. We could talk about lots of films that do that, and you can imagine lots of films that do that. The other point is i really appreciate your point about pollutants. I think jack would agree, although weve not talked about it, is that were really talking about how can we deal with this world of illusions that we live and in viscerally respond to and critique it enough so that we can actually deal with the real issues that are in front of us. We are facing profound social, global issues, interrelated issues about climate change, about the, you know, the well being of, you know, the great majority of people are increasingly poor. And the disparity between wealth and poverty rate. So how can we get to deal with those issues, how can we get to deal with the Sustainable Energy kinds of questions . How can we deal with the fact that in the Pacific Ocean theres this [inaudible] end up in this gyre, and they disintegrate, and the fish eat them, and were all becoming plastic in our bodies. Theyre opening up sea birds, and they find all sorts of plastic inside of them. How can we deal with that if were still stuck in these silos in a world of illusions . So thats really whats at stake here is not to just of course, you know, in some ways it sounds kind of crazy and amazing and like its funny and [inaudible conversations] but really the stakes are how can we figure out how to talk with people who we perceived as so different from us that we cant even agree on standards for solar panels . Very powerful. The lady in the front. Thank you all for your years of work on this project. I wanted to ask a question about the role or the position of women in your archives, and i dont mean to lump these different subjects together, but [inaudible] i ask that because were dealing with collective representation, you know, politics. The role of the woman to the kind of domestic structure in the family [inaudible] romance arises and she becomes [inaudible] betrayer of her race. And also a way to identify racism is often to [inaudible] to the immacklation of men. So i wonder if you could speak a little bit about how your projects deal with that, that [inaudible] well, if we talked about arab women, short men now, submissive objects. Either theyre in the desert getting water from the well, all the subservient to the male. Bosomy belly dancer mostly mute most of the time. Occasionally, it started with a movie called [inaudible] she payment a terrorist she became a terrorist. But almost always there were some rare exceptions to that in some early arabian nights films where they were very strong women who really identify themselves and who said, you know, ill ride to baghdad, ill do whatever i have to do to save my fathers life. And who wouldnt not be submissive, but theyre very, very rare. Many commonalities, i think, with the images of asian womenment women. But totally, totally almost as bad if not as bad as images of the arab male. Yeah. Well, of course, representations of gender are throughout all of this material and are very central element of it, and so but one interesting story that i think kind of, that we found that i think addresses this to some extent is in a lot of the early coming war novels that sort of, that inspired few man chew, the first of which was empty shields, yellow danger, in dozens of them it is the white womans rejection of an asian student that compels him to decide to take over the world [laughter] and place revenge upon the continent that spurned him. Unfortunate reaction. [laughter] yeah. Over and over and over again for a hundred years. I mean, i can give you a list. But i think that captures a lot of the dynamics at play because on the one hand the context between east and west is often described as the contest over women, like many contests are imagined to be, and then it is the easts lack of masculinity that requires them to take revenge. And thats actually, i mean, even in todays terrorist studies journals its often described that, you know, these islamic add heernlts adherents are upset that their caliphate is not in control, and theyre going to take out that masculine shame on the world by attacking people they imagine to be better men. And even in that formulation which some of that is in the book, but theres lots of it around is, again, a celebration of a fantasy western masculinity that is so awesome that people cant handle it and immediate to attack it. [laughter] and need to attack it. [laughter] which brings up, i think, this question of queerness which is haunting that, that the incredible straightness of the white man is making everyone else feel queer shame. [laughter] but then on the other hand, the other big thing that we see is that finish and a lot of and a lot has been written about this particularly after 9 11 these domestic, the crises of what people imagine to be civilizational conflict are also used to try the strengthen the gender system in the United States. So after pearl harbor in Time Magazine there was a famous essay by luce who was the editor saying i will now we should realize that we havent been men must have to recognize this japanese threat. And so lets, like, set aside all this silly discussion of civil rights and equality and, like, really man up to fight the japanese. The same thing was said after 9 11. It was, you know, described as a crisis of masculinity. Now we can susan falutti wrote a book about the impact of that, and a lot of the conservative commenters were saying cant we stop talking about feminism now that were in a war with islam . So i think theyre all deeply embedded with one another. I almost forgot excuse me for just a moment. Erica jungs book, theres a chapter shes written called arabs and other animals. Fear of flying . Yeah. And the one image i forgot to mention shes someone else id like to have a cup of coffee with [laughter] is the fact that the you see the movie hidalgo where theres this great desert race and the cowboy, we cant make cowboys and indians movies anymore, so a cowboy goes to an arab country with his horse to enter the great desert race. And not only does he win the great desert win, but the arab heroine, this beautiful woman, says youve got to win otherwise ill be forced to marry sheikh abdullah, and, you know, we see sheikh abdullah. [laughter] and so were cheering, of course, for our cowboy hero to win the great desert race so that the poor arab woman and thats a common theme in many, many themes, that the arab woman will go to the white protagonist and say, please, rescue me from my arab brothers. I happen to believe that if you watch the mask of few man chew, all you need to know about everything will be in that film. [laughter] so its my reference for everything now. So that one of the triangles that you see is two white one white woman and finish. [inaudible] whos playing the daughter of fu man chew fighting over this tall, hunky white guy who is drug by fu manchu and at one point is [inaudible] who has kind of a sadomasochistic, queer, nonnormative kind of sexual desire. You know, shes kind of putting her fingernails on his body. Versus the white woman who truly loves him and is able to get him out of his drugged stupor by expressing her pure love for this manment so you have for this man. So you have two modes of sexuality, gender roles played off each other. So, again, theres another triangle. Its a different one than we talked about before, but its. Have there. And thats a lot of the dynamics were seeing whether its in the same film or played out i think we have time for who more questions. Am i correct . This gentleman and then well try to squeeze in three. Thank you. I guess my question is related to your pushback idea and if at any point in all of your, you know, analysis and imagery did you find pushback in that people who are being oppressed by [inaudible] were using the image kind of [inaudible] making it a power for themselves . Is there any, like, reappropriating . In a sense, yeah. [inaudible] given how negative these images are, can you use this language as a form of power . I think that is the classic american way its done. [laughter] we write the narrative. And it requires because of it happens in the commercial culture, its a little bit tricky so that if we look at lets say some of the very early irish playwrights who are here in new york city writing plays about irish in bowery theaters, they still have to inhabit the white protestant stereotype of them, and then they have to explode it from within. But it begins with having paying customers who begin to come to their events. Now, when youre excluding chinese from this country, you dont have that paying audience who can act as a counterforce. So were talking about tricky countertypes which is at one moment commercial, at one moment political, at one appointment patricians love, you know, oriental vases, quoteunquote, japanese or chinese. And so they think that oriental merchants im using the word in quotes are upright citizens who are just as good asean key merchants, right . Yankee merchants. But at the same time you dont have the group being able to the push back. Now were in a different situation. This is the first time theres a chance to push back at the commercial culture to unpack and challenge and have it explode within. Those kinds of images. So thats, in some way, kind of where were at right nowment now. Yeah. Thats very, very striking when you think about aljazeera america, when you think about how the hollywood movie studios have to cater to china a which is now one of the largest movie markets in the world. Its very, very interesting. Two, two more questions, i think. Yes. Hi. Actually related to question from the gentleman, im thinking the Younger Generation either theyre born in this country or the new immigrants from china, for them some of the racist words have lost [inaudible] content. You know, like the lady back there, she didnt really know whats going [inaudible] i dont either. So when these people now become the majority and also when people [inaudible] rosie odonnell, she used the word [inaudible] when she used it, she didnt know it was biased. That was a few years ago. So when the person who says the word doesnt though what the word means and the person who hard the word doesnt know what it who heard the word doesnt know either [laughter] or is there, is this something that you guys can no, i think you take that. [inaudible conversations] ill take it. Its a very good question because some people would argue, well, thats progress. We dont know what it means anymore. But also were still using it, so theres kind of a strange paradox. I think part of becoming american in a weird kind of way is actually learning these things. Now, either you start using them in the derogatory way that they have been, or you begin to in some ways inhabit them in a different way. Weve recently, some of you who have seen the newspapers know that one of our private high schools in new york city have put on thoroughly modern millie, and they put on the broadway version of it, not the original Julie Andrews film version of it which was very racist and showed lots of stereotypes, very negative stereotypes of chinese, opium dens and laundries, all that. Broadway play musical was a little different and was meant to be satirical. And then now you have a high school of very welltodo high school of people paying as much money as, you you know, 30, 40 a year for their students to go there, the administration signs off on it. And in a weird kind of way, they are the example youre talking about. They dont know these are stereotypes, but theyre still part of more than theater and american society. Now, some of the parents who were from asian backgrounds got very upset because even the satire of the stereotypes struck them as something very strange and odd. So were talking about layers and boxes here in which we really to be able to understand whats going on, we have to unpack it. And to the schools credit, theres going to be a panel talking about this. But in some ways, the process of becoming american is actually starting to learn these things but not to simply not understand them and just repeat them, but to actually begin to engage with them and to really understand the history in some of them. No, i think to make the illuminations visible, hmm . Make them visible. Very wise. Were pressed for time, so lets move quickly. Gentleman okay. In the sweater and then in the back. So i wanted to go back to the book that you held up [inaudible] rising tide of color and sort of the moment in history around world war i where it was [inaudible] the fear of exactly that, the rising tide of color, united front of colonized peoples rising up to punish or colonize the colonizer, and i want to sort of link that to current rhetoric thats being thrown around [inaudible] a majority minority, sort of the fear that conservative Americas Holding on to in terms of i think its in 2042 for the first time a white man will no longer constitute the majority of United States. And i wonder if you see this as sort of a new moment of in which this fear of a rising tide of color is sort of emerging. And also i want to ask sort of whether, whether this model of jews, italians, irish, folks who were not considered white assimilating [inaudible] applicable to this current context and whether we can reasonably imagine that, you know, demographics like today we can see both as being very clearly nonwhite whether there is sort of whether the malleability of [inaudible] flexible or not. Sort of taken in groups. Well, i just worked as a consultant on the super bowl coke commercial [laughter] and i remember the backlash that i received from my friends on the island, some of them, because they didnt like it because they were singing in different languages. And they just felt why didnt they sing it in english. And so they missed the point. [laughter] i mean, they it wasnt malicious. They just, they didnt like it. And we knew that when we were talking. If you see the 90second spot, it begins, the olympic ad begins with them saying i am an american. Several groups or several people from different cultures say i am american. And that sort of sets it up a little better. But if you look at what happened in new york last year with miss america, hmm, and how the fox news president roger whats his name, i wont speak his last name, was critical because of her background. Here he is, shes born in new york and three years before that miss usa, an arabamerican from michigan, i mean, its a problem. And at some point i dont know what will happen, but hopefully the Younger Generation will kind of let the old folks fade out into the background [laughter] and move forward. In the right way. I think its a minority, but its a very vocal minority. And its a very loud minority. Yeah. Well, i do think that that, this question of minority majority has already begun to instill fear similar to this in many people who are more invested in the status quo. I think its been used for quite a long time now to try to argue as to why politicians of color are going to play favorites or going to punish. I think that fear of retribution from the people that, from, you know, any marginalized group is interesting because it is an implicit recognition of how powerful racism is. And i think that we can use it in that way. I think thats one of the reasons for me that this work is relevant to everybody even if they dont see themselves as that connected as targets to this material, because the fear of retribution is, i think, pervasive in america. And is itself a form of analysis of just how stratified of a society we live in. And the guilty of that the guilt of that which breeds fear cant ever be resolved. And i think thats one of the reasons why inclusion into whiteness should not be the goal, because the has expanded and contracted over the nations history and has played a real role in giving some people advantage and prominence in our system, but it comes at the cost of being a relational identity that is inherently antagonistic because its not equal. And so we can expand it, but i dont think that thats going to actually address the fundamental concerns which are how to get at the root of what were actually afraid of which, i think, is inequality. So one final question from the back. This goes to the future and sort of wrapping some of what the last few people asked and, jack, what you had said that weve got all these unbelievably dire life and death issues on the planet and just if our personal lives in our personal lives. Ive been touring with another project around the country and talking to students and letting them talk about what its like for them to be in this much more mixed community where you have to have dialogue. And some of the you have to have dialogue, because youre in the school or youre in the college. And something that came up recently that i dont know how you would use your book or use these kinds of ways of looking backwards, but theres a native american student thats in the forth west who northwest who are in this college that traditionally there have not been a lot of native americans and talk about really being hidden and wiped out in terms of the [inaudible] study groups. Whos going to sit with who, whos going to study with who. Ill work with the Chinese Student because theyre smart, but im, you know, the native americans, nobody wants to study with them because of the assumption that they didnt have the intellectual chops to be that kind of partner. And it came up in this discussion of who gets listened to. And so i think maybe it came up early when dylan or jack said something about the model minority student. And so Going Forward not to get stuck totally in these are the negative stereotypes that people have been holding on to for a long time, how would you think of using some of this so that people can then start getting beyond that and listen to each other, you know . Certainly with race [inaudible] being black this america too. And as i travel, i met a black man and see how people respond to each of us when who opens their mouth to say what. Literally, like, who gets listened to in what way. And so maybe theres a way you can think of how these things could be used to open up the dialogue, not shut it down with more stereotyping. One example, perhaps, is the work of uri [inaudible] who worked with a mixed group of urban students, some africanamericans, some asianamerican among others in a class, and he noticed that the asianamerican students were very good at math which is a common stereotype. And then the africanamerican students and some of the White American students were struggling. It might have been calculus. I cant remember what it was. And instead of simply accepting the stereotype that somehow these groups are socially intelligence or inferior in these intelligent or inferior in these areas, he followed some of the students and asked them what their study habits were, and he quickly discovered that the asianamerican students found it was perfectly fine to study together. And they actually learned from each other, and thats how they pirged these problems out figured these problems out, whereas the africanamerican and White American students were thinking, wait, thats cheating. If were studying with somebody else, were somehow not were somehow proving that were cheating and borrowing from somebody else. Now, that seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding. Of really how we all learn. We all learn in a group social situation. We necessarily so it suggests really that we are the only way this society but also a group of people learning calculus can really advance and learn calculus is by doing it together. And not just having the traditional teacher lecture, student receptor somehow memorizing and somehow either being inferior or better, but actually learning from each other, and thats really where, i think, a lot of futures going to be. Id like to ask one final question to end this very, very exciting and insightful evening. Many of the images that are this these two book withs are very ugly and books are very ugly and images that many of us would prefer to turn away from or not cop front. But id like to confront. But id like to ask each of you to name one message or theme or slogan from your research that we should not turn away from, that has a certain significance that must be confronted or stared at in the face no matter how discome fitting or upsetting that is. Well, the one image i found in garage sale of a Childrens Book which teaches the alphabet. And, of course, stereotype you begin with children, you start with a child. And its an ugly, fat arab sitting on an ass. And the caption is, a is for arab, which is the title of the book. Be. What period is this, jack. This was probably 19 i could look it up, but i think it was 1970s. Wow. That more than any other image. Well, its tough to pick because [laughter] weve come across so many. But one of the, one of the themes that we explored in the book in terms of images is a very long tradition of depicting a sort of solitary white man about to be overwhelmed by a horde, and we have images across hundreds of years and, actually, many of the movies jack writes about, that image is there, that image was used to celebrate custer against native americans, Davy Crockett against the mexicans, the french against the muslims in spain. So, and i think that that notion that there are two kinds of people in the world, individuals and hordes, robots, clones yeah. And that those are somehow connected categories, one needs the other kind of make sense really lends us towards some very dehumanizing practices. This one isnt in our book, but its something that comes out of my childhood and certainly when our daughter came of age, you know, reading to her, its the five Chinese Brothers which is the american version of the story which is all the Chinese Brothers are all looking the same except they had different powers and all that. We know that. Its based on a chinese story which actually is not in which the chinese are, the five brothers are all the same. But i think its a very powerful, seemingly innocent representation, stereotype, Childrens Book. But it does immediately lend into the contemporary issues of are chinese really being clones of each other, not being individual, being similar . We see this in a lot of the Science Fiction films that are both distopic and you taupic. Asians are kind of weird because they are faceless and all the same. It also plays itself out in the whole argument about copyright and knockoffs. Of course, were right in china town and, you know, mayor bloomberg had this whole campaign against kind of blocking off a whole block of china town because this was supposedly the Global Center of [inaudible] in the world. And he had to, he had to cut it at its source. And some of that money was financing terrorists. Now, this whole image of knockoff goes deep into the American Culture made in japan, made in hong kong, made in taiwan, made in china. These are all seen as cheap knockoffs, and the knockoff attitude has transferred over to people as well. So this is where things and people and ideas all get kind of lumped together, and its actually quite seemingly innocent on one hand but deeply entrenched in all sorts of policy issues about what is individual, whats original and whats a copy. Weve had a very fruitful discussion this evening with jack shaheen, author of a is for arab archiving stereotypes in the u. S. Popular culture, and with john tchen and dylan yeats. Id like to thank the museum of chinese in america and this panel of scholars and experts for their time, their insights and their dedicated work. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i just want to conclude saying that jack tchen whos also the cofounder of [inaudible] we thank you for bringing this Wonderful Program here tonight. Part two of this program will be [inaudible] [laughter] im kidding, i wish. [laughter] but the part two of program is a book signing by the authors upstairs in the lobby. So for those of you who have not bought the book, buy the book, get it signed and is have a wonderful and have a wonderful night, and i hope to see you pack here [inaudible] [applause] [inaudible conversations] cspan2, providing live coverage of the u. S. Senate floor proceedings and key Public Policy events. And every weekend,