Made-Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era

Lee, Esther Kim

doi:doi:10.3998/mpub.12121434

Esther Kim Lee

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Made-Up Asians traces the history of yellowface, the theatrical convention of non-Asian actors putting on makeup and costume to look East Asian. Using specific case studies from European and U.S. theater, race science, and early film, Esther Kim Lee traces the development of yellowface in the U.S. context during the Exclusion Era (1862–1940), when Asians faced legal and cultural exclusion from immigration and citizenship. These caricatured, distorted, and misrepresented versions of Asians took the place of excluded Asians on theatrical stages and cinema screens. The book examines a wide-ranging set of primary sources, including makeup guidebooks, play catalogs, advertisements, biographies, and backstage anecdotes, providing new ways of understanding and categorizing yellowface as theatrical practice and historical subject. Made-Up Asians also shows how lingering effects of Asian exclusionary laws can still be seen in yellowface performances, casting practices, and anti-Asian violence into the 21st century.

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. “A Dumb Chinese Slave”
Chapter 2. “Chinee by Nature”
Chapter 3. “How to Make-Up”
Chapter 4. “Dainty as Needs Be”
Chapter 5. “The Oriental Eye”
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Resources

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Photograph showing seven characters on a stage decorated to look like a Japanese house

"Madame Butterfly"

From Chapter 4

Fig. 14. A scene from David Belasco’s 1900 production of Madame Butterfly at the Herald Square Theatre in New York City. Byron Company (New York, NY). Museum of the City of New York. 55.252.43.

Photograph showing multiple characters onstage, including Yo-San, Kara, and two men in darked-toned full-body suits

"The Darling of the Gods"

From Chapter 4

Fig. 15. Blanche Bates as Yo-San, kneeling in front of the blindfolded Robert T. Haines as Kara. Behind them stand actors portraying “coolies” in full-body suits and loincloths. The Darling of the Gods. Byron Company (New York, NY). Museum of the City of New York. 93.1.1.18840.

Blanche Bates

From Chapter 4

Fig. 16. Blanche Bates in a dressing room as Yo-San, New York City, 1902. Byron Company (New York, NY). Museum of the City of New York. 41.420.544.

Photograph of Blanche Bates in a shoulder-and-up pose wearing makeup, costume, and wig to look like a Japanese woman

Blanche Bates as Yo-San from the cover of “Souvenir Programme” for The Darling of the Gods at the 1904 St. Louis World Exposition

From Chapter 4

Fig. 17. Blanche Bates as Yo-San. The photo appears on the cover of a “Souvenir Programme” for The Darling of the Gods at the 1904 St. Louis World Exposition. From the author’s personal collection.

University of Michigan Press
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Made-Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era

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