In Made-Up Asians: Yellowface during the Exclusion Era, Esther Kim Lee takes a crucial step in the systematic study of yellowface. Lee expands her prior contributions to the field of Asian American theatre by accounting for the persistent and problematic practice of white actors who deprive their Asian American counterparts of Asian roles. Acts of deprivation, as Lee asserts, are key to understanding yellowface, because its genealogy is intimately related to a historical period when people of Asian descent were denied an array of rights, ranging from authentic stage representations to citizenship, in the United States. Lee's overarching argument is that yellowface functions as “a technology of Asian exclusion” (4). By “technology,” she refers to “the material use of tools, wares, and apparatuses” as well as “theatrical technologies” that go into the creation of stage and screen yellowface (4). With “exclusion,” she particularly attends to the years between 1862 and 1940 in the United States. This period is bookended by the passing of the Anti-Coolie Act and the reevaluation of Asian immigration due to the Second World War. Lee also intends technology and exclusion to serve as two pillars of an epistemological foundation to complement prior paradigms of interpreting yellowface, such as technical theatrical conventions (primarily makeup and costumes), acting traditions, and orientalism (5–6).

The five chapters are arranged both chronologically and thematically. Chapter 1 focuses on what Lee calls “clown yellowface,” “a type of racial impersonation that depicts Asians as inherently humorous in the tradition of clowning and physical comedy” (22), and traces its origin in Britain as well as further development in the United States. The Aladdin pantomime is central to this history. Building on commedia dell'arte conventions, English actor Joseph Grimaldi created Kazrac, a Chinese clown to his master Abenazac the African sorcerer (32). The character then migrated to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean with Aladdin. Examining American comedian Charles Burke and Charles T. Parsloe Jr.'s performances of Kazrac, Lee notices that Kazrac changed from a zanni to a dramatic character between the 1850s to the 1860s, a decade that also witnessed the arrival of the first wave of Chinese immigrants (46). Variations of the Chinese clown eventually found their way into stage works other than Aladdin, linking Kazrac to the ubiquitous stage Chinaman, the stereotypical mouthpiece of Chinese exclusion.

Chapters 2 and 3 turn to race science, more commonly known today as scientific racism, and its profound influence on yellowface. Contextualizing race science in postbellum United States, especially phrenology and physiognomy, Lee juxtaposes two modes of representation that developed simultaneously. On one hand, amid influxes of immigrants, rapid urbanization, and fierce competition in the acting profession, white actors embraced race science to justify their monopoly of legitimate theatre and as the foundation to portray other races “naturally.” On the other hand, Asians, along with other people of color, were reduced to “passive theatricality, a mode of representation that strips the performer of agency” (79) in museum exhibits and freak shows. With Chapter 2 covering the logic of scientific yellowface, Chapter 3 then zooms in on yellowface makeup, with a special focus on greasepaint and skin color, and covers its gradual canonization in the theatre industry through the analysis of makeup manuals. This chapter also introduces the idea of “private yellowface” referring to both yellowface in private theatricals and yellowface makeup technology as a form of inside knowledge (87).

Acknowledging that both the stage Chinaman and makeup guidebooks primarily served the interests of white men, Lee addresses white actresses’ participation in yellowface in Chapter 4. She points out that these actresses, unlike their male counterparts, practiced “cosmetic yellowface,” which intends to beautify rather than caricature (122). Cosmetic yellowface has its root in white women's attitude toward allegedly Eastern makeup products and dresses: these desirable commodities helped them become more attractive while white supremacy protected them from being associated, like Asian women, with excessive sexual appeal. The same orientalist discourse also reigns over cosmetic yellowface. Lee compares Sada Yacco's U.S. tour [1899–1900] with American actress Blanche Bates's performance of Japanese heroines in David Belasco's Madam Butterfly (1900) and The Darling of the Gods (1902). Yacco's audiences praised her as a frail Asian beauty, especially in her famous death scene in Dōjōji, but overlooked her agency and artistry. Bates, by contrast, received accolades for her enactment of the delicate Asian female stereotype. Acting as Asian women who perished onstage, Bates materialized their exclusion in cosmetic yellowface.

Lee picks up the thread of technology again in Chapter 5 to discuss yellowface's evolution from stage to screen. Multiple factors, including photorealism, black-and-white films’ inability to present skin color accurately, and the emphasis on technology in film makeup, led to the obsession with the epicanthic fold, also known as the “Oriental eye,” and the subsequent invention of “prosthetic yellowface” (150–2). Regardless of technological innovations, screen yellowface remained at its core a manifestation of nineteenth-century scientific racism: whereas non–Anglo-Saxon European makeup became white makeup, Asian makeup was relegated to special effects on par with those of deformed or nonhuman characters, which reflected the contemporary ideology of “yellow peril” (154). After unpacking yellowface performances from Hollywood stars such as Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, and Katharine Hepburn, Lee proceeds to make clear in the Epilogue that yellowface goes hand in hand with casting effectively to push out Asian American performers.

Made-Up Asians is a long-awaited work that fills a lacuna in theatre and performance studies, film studies, and American Studies. I especially appreciate Lee's generosity. In addition to meticulous research and compelling analysis, the book provides valuable pictorial evidence (twenty-three figures) and an appendix that documents yellowface instructions in makeup manuals to spark further research. Lee's lucid writing style also makes her work accessible to general readers. Made-Up Asians is truly a rare accomplishment that needs to be read, referenced, and taught.