In this first book-length study of media images of multiracial Asian Americans, Leilani Nishime traces the codes that alternatively enable and prevent audiences from recognizing the multiracial status of Asian Americans. Nishime's perceptive readings of popular media—movies, television shows, magazine articles, and artwork—indicate how and why the viewing public often fails to identify multiracial Asian Americans. Using actor Keanu Reeves and the Matrix trilogy, golfer Tiger Woods as examples, Nishime suggests that this failure is tied to gender, sexuality, and post-racial politics. Also considering alternative images such as reality TV star Kimora Lee Simmons, the television show Battlestar Galactica, and the artwork of Kip Fulbeck, this incisive study offers nuanced interpretations that open the door to a new and productive understanding of race in America.
| Cover Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Preface. Why Are You? Multiracial Asian Americans and the Question of Visibility 1. Multiracial Asian Americans and the Myth of the Mulatto Millennium PART I: UNDERCOVER ASIANS 2. Queer Keanu: The Politics of Bad Acting in the Era of Don't Ask, Don't Tell 3. Tiger Woods and the Perils of Colorblind Celebrity 4. Aliens: The Interracial Family in Battlestar Galactica PART II: ASIANS UNCOVERED 5. The Matrix Trilogy and Multiraciality at the End of Time 6. Camp Kimora 7. Seeing Multiracial Notes Bibliography Index | "In the case of Undercover Asian, Nishime's critical intervention cannot be overstated. Her book compels readers to see multiracial Asian Americans, to understand their function in discourses of popular culture, to contextualize the place of multiracial Asian Americans in contemporary society, and to challenge our ideas of race and racialization."—Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas

"Nishime makes a compelling argument for productive possibilities in the way that we understand multiracial bodies and narratives. This fascinating, elegant book provides a model for doing this kind of analysis and creating new narratives so that these possibilities may one day be realized."—Feminist Media Studies

"Nishime's persuasive, well-grounded analysis yields genuinely brilliant insights regarding the pitfalls and possibilities of multiracial visibility in contemporary media culture. Lucidly written with appealing attention to popular texts, this is the sort of book that moves multiracial and Asian American studies in interesting and engaging new directions."—Glen Mimura, author of Ghostlife of Third Cinema: Asian American Film and Video
|Leilani Nishime is an assistant professor of communications at the University of Washington and the coeditor of East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture.