The history of race in American theater is more complicated than you might think, writes Dr. Josephine Lee in Oriental, Black, and White: The Formation of Racial Habits in American Theater (UNC Press, 2022). Dr. Lee, a professor of English and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota, examines the linked histories of orientalism, Blackface and Yellowface, in nineteenth and early twentieth century American theater, showing how identity creation and racialization occurred among multiple groups simultaneously. Within the context of large scale East Asian immigration to the West coast, labor debates, and American empire building. Theaters, both on the East and West coasts, and touring Black and white theater companies, thus both reflected and shaped American ideas about race and belonging throughout this time period. A fascinating and complex look at how Americans tried to make sense of their world, Lee asks readers to look beyond easy answers and assumptions, and look at American theater in a new way.

Oriental, Black, and White is an open access book, available for free via JStor.

Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

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