Keen On

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown,” were, of course, the closing words from Polanski’s 1974 movie, Chinatown. But the point of Jeff Chang’s new biography of Bruce Lee, Water Mirror Echo, is that by 1973, when Lee died, Asian America was more than just Chinatown. Lee made Asian America, Chang argues, by giving Asian Americans dignity. Chang shows how Lee’s journey from segregated Seattle and San Francisco neighborhoods to global stardom paralleled the rise of Asian American political consciousness. His films weren’t just action movies but anti-colonial spectacles - kicking down “No Chinese and Dogs” signs, fighting for workers against bosses, defending communities against gentrification. After Bruce Lee, chinatown became more, so much more, than just chinatown.1. Lee was an “anchor baby” who embodied the immigrant struggle Born in San Francisco in 1940 during Chinese Exclusion, Lee lived in segregated neighborhoods and learned firsthand what it meant to be a racialized minority - making him a powerful symbol fo