While some Asian American films and filmmakers are beginning to achieve acclaim in mainstream U.S. culture, neither academic scholars nor society as a whole has sufficiently taken account of the history of this rich and growing body of cinematic production. In Asian America Through the Lens, Jun Xing accomplishes the colossal task of surveying Asian American cinema for the first time, allowing its aesthetic, cultural, and political diversity and continuities to emerge. Unique insight into Asian American experience in both mainstream and alternative film production is provided by textual analysis as well as by the voices of filmmakers and actors themselves. With constant attention to the specificities of Asian American histories and cultures, Xing engages a broad range of issues and theoretical perspectives, drawing insight from such bodies of scholarship as African American and Latino film studies, Marxian cultural theory, ethnic studies and the politics of representation, and post-structuralist and feminist discourses.

"The second half of the book is an uncommonly valuable study (and filmography) of Asian Americans in documentaries, family dramas, and experimental films. The fact that only five or six of the films are as popular as Joy Luck Club—most films discussed are 'virtually unknown to the average American'—is both the drawback and the value of this book....This is a useful guide to worthwhile movies." - CHOICE