Gunga Din Highway (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Frank Chin
- First Published: 1994
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: United States or Americans, Acting or actors, Parents and children, Racism, Twentieth century, Fathers, Identity, Films, movies, or motion pictures, Hollywood, Stereotypes, Asian Americans, Chinese Americans
- Locales: California
Gunga Din Highway is a passionately argued novel about Chinese American identity. It opens with Longman Kwan, a Chinese American actor who is given bit parts in Hollywood movies that stereotype Asians, generally dying for whites or as their enemy. Now, Longman reunites with the (fictional) last white actor who played the Chinese detective Charlie Chan opposite Longman's role as Chan's fourth son.
As throughout his oeuvre, Chin deftly mixes the real with the imaginary. Charlie Chan was indeed played by three different whites and never an Asian actor. His subordinate sons...
[The entire page is 797 words long]
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