Charlie Chan: the untold story of the honorable detective and his rendezvous with American history by Yunte Huang. 355 p.
This fascinating book covers four "stories" of Charlie Chan, as the author describes it: first, the bullwhip-toting Cantonese detective in Hawaii, Chang Apana, on which the character was based; second, the story of Earl Derr Biggers, the novelist who created the character of Charlie Chan; third, the translation of that character to the silver screen; and fourth, the character's influence on popular culture from the perspective of Asian Americans. Along the way we get a lot of history about Hawaii to help frame the discussion, including a whole chapter on the infamous Massie case in the early 1930s that really displays the racism that existed in Hawaii (and the mainland states too, of course) at the time, and a fair amount about immigration limitations. I'd like to have read even more about Chang Apana, but the whole book was really interesting. Did you know that Stepin Fetchit appeared in one of the Charlie Chan movies?
Thanks, Cindy, for the post. I know what you mean about more Apana stuff, but it's hard to cook a nice chop suey dish with too many ingredients, would you say? :) --Yunte Huang
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