While some Asian American films and filmmakers are beginning to achieve
acclaim in mainstream U.S. culture, neither academic scholars nor
society as a whole has sufficiently taken account of the history of this
rich and growing body of cinematic production. In Asian America Through
the Lens, Jun Xing accomplishes the colossal task of surveying Asian
American cinema for the first time, allowing its aesthetic, cultural,
and political diversity and continuities to emerge. Unique insight into
Asian American experience in both mainstream and alternative film
production is provided by textual analysis as well as by the voices of
filmmakers and actors themselves. With constant attention to the
specificities of Asian American histories and cultures, Xing engages a
broad range of issues and theoretical perspectives, drawing insight from
such bodies of scholarship as African American and Latino film studies,
Marxian cultural theory, ethnic studies and the politics of
representation, and post-structuralist and feminist discourses.