The Clutches of Orientalism: Negative Portrayals of Asian American Identity

In 2016, INHERITANCE Magazine, the Brehm Center, and the Fuller Asian American Initiative (now Center) came together to host Altered Egos, a conference on Gospel, Pop Culture, and Asian American Identity.

Featuring a lineup of Asian American pop culture creators, cultural commentators, and ministers, the sessions were filled with conversation surrounding Asian American identity and cultural representation. These dialogues can now be seen as prescient, taking place at a time when Fresh Off the Boat was just beginning to establish itself as an ABC family staple, and years before the success of Crazy Rich Asians and Killing Eve.

Perhaps now more timely than ever, for the next four weeks, Centered will be re-posting video recordings of the entire Altered Egos conference in the hopes that they can speak into our current cultural moment, beginning with this video of the first session, The Clutches of Orientalism, featuring award-winning author Gene Luen Yang (New Superman, American Born Chinese, The Shadow Hero)

National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and award-winning author Gene Luen Yang talks about Asian and Asian American representation in American comics.

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