A Conversation with Author and Filmmaker Professor William Gow

Asian American History 101

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 20! There are plenty of things we love… and for sure one of them is the world of film and entertainment… especially when it’s Asian American cinema. But what happens when what you see represented in Hollywood becomes blurred with the actual experience in an ethnic enclave… or even drives it? Our conversation today dives a bit into that. We’re excited to share this conversation with Professor William Gow.

Dr. Gow is a California-based community historian, educator, and documentary filmmaker who is currently an Assistant Professor at California State University, Sacramento. His forthcoming book, Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community is scheduled for release by Stanford University Press on May 14, 2024… and if you order direct from the publisher and use discount code GOW20, you get 20% off! The book examines Los Angeles Chinatown and its relationship to Hollywood cinema in the 1930s and 1940s. We really enjoyed the book and the depth of the research Dr. Gow presents. In fact, this has been one of the most insightful books we’ve read in the last few years, pushing our thinking of how Chinese Americans survived and represented themselves to often judgmental onlookers.

Professor Gow also has worked on several other projects. Some of the ones that we appreciated are More to the Chinese Side (click to watch an excerpt), The Five Chinatowns: A Community History (along with Dr. Kelly Fong one of our future guests and ), and the great article A Night in Old Chinatown (we talk about this one in the podcast).

We highly recommend purchasing Performing Chinatown! Don’t forget… if you purchase from Stanford University Press and use the discount code GOW20 (all caps), you get 20% off.

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