The “strange affinities”: early Chinese American Vaudevillians’ blackface performance

Abstract

In the first two decades of the early twentieth century, Chinese American vaudeville artists reinterpreted their appearances on stage by utilizing Black performative languages. As a consideration of commercial selection value and a direct response to American ethnic relations, Chinese American vaudeville performers picked black-themed cultural works to perform. The way in which the early performers portrayed Chineseness exploited the imposed stereotypical labels and indicated a self-consciousness among second-generation Chinese American on stage. However, these on-stage self-representations, though likely a response to Sinophobia, were more of a passive reaction than a conscious decision. Similarly to their African American counterparts, to succeed in vaudeville, early Chinese American vaudevillians had to negotiate between well-developed preconceptions and their own artistic desires, which required them to bear the burdens of the past’s ugliness. Most of their performative languages, especially physical features, thus preserved the long-held stereotypes of Chinese people, such as the queue, the costume, etc.

Keywords

• Vaudeville
• Chinese American
• blackface
• Black Theatre
• Performance Studies

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