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"Interior Chinatown" by Charles Yu is a story that depicts the story of Willis Wu. He's a Taiwanese actor and son of a famous actors. Wu's family members are also actors. His mother has played Asiatic Seductress, Girl with the Almond Eyes, and Old Asian Woman. His father has played Twin Dragon, Egg Roll Cook, and Old Asian Man. His most prestigious role was as Sifu, a Kung Fu master. Willis is confined by the constraints of society to aim to play the highest role an Asian can play: "The Kung Fu Guy," but his skills are mediocre at best. The novel dives further into Willis's journey as an actor the stars of Black and White, the detectives White Lady Cop (Green) and Black Dude Cop (Turner)

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"Interior Chinatown" was published in January 28, 2020. The context of the real world leading up to the publishing of this novel was marked by a lack of representation and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes of Asians and Pacific Islanders in Hollywood. A report from the University of Southern California analyzed Asian and Pacific Islander actors and roles in 1,300 popular films from 2007 to 2019. It found there was little to no meaningful increase in representation, despite Asian Americans being the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. In 2019, over a quarter of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander characters in the year’s top 100 movies at the box office were dead by the end of the movie, and all but one died violently. This lack of representation and the perpetuation of stereotypes provided a backdrop against which “Interior Chinatown” was published, offering a critique of these issues through its narrative. Learn more about these studies and representation in the articles presented in the next few sections. And of course, the Covid-19 pandemic had just started to rage on in 2019 and continued throughout 2020. Although the story is focused on Asians almost predetermined role in society(portrayed through movie roles), it does touch upon Asian hate as a whole. Covid-19 was a major event that sparked hateful actions towards these communities, as even the President was calling Covid the Chinese virus.

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Charles Yu is part of an interview covering the overall success of his novel. He speaks about how he was influenced by his parents who emigrated from Taiwan. He says, "I had heard a lot of their stories, and internalized them, so a lot of what went into the book, at least in early drafts, started from seeds of either small biographical bits about their experiences in the US, as very recently having arrived here, or there was a feeling or some moment that stuck out, some sentence that my parents used to describe it, and I would kind of use that to craft something fictional about it, so a lot of the sections that deal with Old Asian Man and Old Asian Woman are based on their experiences.

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An Interview with Charles Yu | Penguin Random House

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Charles Yu, author of the National Book Award winning novel, Interior Chinatown,

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Visit additional works from Charles Yu and read additional reviews from various critics, including Los Angeles Review of Books and The Boston Globe.

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"Brilliant and hilarious"
-Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer

" An extraordinary book by an immensely talented writer"
-Emily St. John Mandel, National Book Award finalist and author of The Glass Hotel

Named a Most Anticipated Book by: Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, The A.V. Club, Lit Hub, Woman's Day, The Rumpus, Thrillist, and more.

"One of the funniest books of the year has arrived, a delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire."
- The Washington Post

"Interior Chinatown ... recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner and films like 'The Truman Show.'"
-Adam Sternbergh, The New York Times

"Incisively examines the Asian-American reality of "being perpetual foreigners" in the United States, a minority whose story "will never fit into Black and White."
- The New Yorker

"Interior Chinatown solders together mordant wit and melancholic whimsy to produce a moving exploration of race and assimilation that shouldn't be missed by intellectually adventurous readers."
-Anita Felicelli, San Francisco Chronicle

ABOUT CHARLES YU

"I don't know if there's a better story-bending talent at work than Charles Yu, since the rise of George Saunders."
-Alan Cheuse, NPR

"Yu is a superhero of rendering human consciousness and emotion in the language of engineering and science."
- The New York Times Book Review

"Yu's workmanlike sentences are unexpectedly emotive, while also being almost always very funny. He is a master of the slow reveal."
- The Boston Globe

"What Yu does very well-it is a long list, but this may be its most notable entry- is to create strange and disturbingly normal alternate realities. As readers, we are the better for Yu's astonishing mix of wild imagination and meticulous restraint."
- The Los Angeles Review of Books

"There's some of the cerebral gamesmanship of Jonathan Lethem, the resigned sadness of Kurt Vonnegut, the Phil Dickian paranoiac mistrust of consumer culture. But Yu's voice, sensibility, and approach are unique, especially in the ways he wrings humor and pathos from stripped-down syntax and seemingly passive protagonists."
- San Francisco Chronicle

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"Brilliant and hilarious" -Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer " An extraordinary book by an immensely talented writer" -Emily St. John Mandel, National Book Award finalist and author of The Glass Hotel Named a Most Anticipated Book by: Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, The A.V.

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What Impacted Yu's Perspective and Novel

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What Impacted Yu's Perspective and Novel

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Check out another interview with the author of the story and learn more about his background. Charles Yu graduated in 1997 with a major in molecular and cell biology and a minor in creative writing. When asked what Willis's background story is, he says, "What is their life like when they’re not being questioned by the cops? Like, sort of imagine dimensionalizing the life and experience of a background character. That’s really what Willis Wu is. He’s a background Asian guy who doesn’t get his own storyline." 

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Author Charles Yu: ‘Interior Chinatown’ is about roles and how we play them

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Follow Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast about the people and research that makes UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. Review us on Apple Podcasts. See all Berkeley Voices episodes. In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Charles Yu…

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Analyze interesting interviews from famous Asian actors like Ke Huy Quan and take a look at some statistics about Asians in the movie industry. Here's a few. Only 3.4% of films had an Asian American lead or co-lead; that's only 44 movies. Of those 44 movies, 14 were led by one guy: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The report also found that 39% of films had no Asian and Pacific Island characters at all. 

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In the last few years, there has been a rise of Asian and Asian American representation in hit films, like the history-making best picture winner "Parasite," the rom-com hit "Crazy Rich Asians" and now the critically-acclaimed "Everything Everywhere All at Once," in theaters now.

While AAPI representation in film has changed in a positive way, there is still a ways left to go.

In a roundtable for Entertainment Weekly during the press tour for "Everything Everywhere All At Once," lead actor Ke Huy Quan shared how this movie was his return to film after quitting acting long ago over a lack of roles.

KE HUY QUAN: And then the truth is, as I got older, there was just not a lot of opportunities for an Asian actors, at that time.

JAMIE LEE CURTIS: Older meaning like, 14.

QUAN: No, no, like late teens, early 20s.

CURTIS: Right, okay.

QUAN: And it came, like, once a year or once every six months, while my peers were auditioning two times a week, three times a week.

Plus, it's not like Quan wasn't connected; he had been in some of the biggest movies as a kid, such as playing Short Round in "Indiana Jones" and Data in "The Goonies." But his experience in having a tough time finding adult roles as an Asian-American actor is all too common in the industry.

A report from the University of Southern California analyzed Asian and Pacific Islander actors and roles in 1,300 popular films from 2007 to 2019. It found there was little to no meaningful increase in representation, despite Asian Americans being the fastest-growing demographic in the U.S.

Only 3.4% of films had an Asian American lead or co-lead; that's only 44 movies. Of those 44 movies, 14 were led by one guy: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. The report also found that 39% of films had no Asian and Pacific Island characters at all. In total, less than 6% of all speaking roles went to API actors.

Many roles expressly for Asian characters still may be going to White actors anyway.

Yellowface make-up and prosthetics have been a fairly common technique used in Hollywood since some of its earliest films. One infamous example was the 1937 film "The Good Earth," where German American actress Luise Rainer won an Academy Award for her depiction of a Chinese character, complete with prosthetics. Hollywood trailblazer Anna May Wong was passed over the role because Hollywood's production code at the time forbade depictions of screen intimacy between people of different races, and she was reportedly heartbroken by the decision.

While yellowface has been largely phased out in recent decades, there's been a number of recent roles rewritten for white actors or simply cast as white actors, despite being an Asian character. For instance, Emma Stone acted in "Aloha," Tilda Swinton in "Dr. Strange" and Scarlett Johansson in "Ghost in the Shell."

The 2018 hit "Crazy Rich Asians" was based on a book by Kevin Kwan, who passed on a large paycheck just to make sure he could be involved in creative and development choices - namely in casting. He optioned his book to studios for only a single dollar.

Kwan told the Hollywood Reporter his choice came after one pitch strongly recommended he change the Asian heroine to a white woman to get more interest in the film. He alleges a producer told him, "It's a pity you don't have a white character."

"Crazy Rich Asians," led by an all-Asian ensemble cast, became the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the past decade.

When talking about diverse representation in movies, it's about so much more than symbolic milestones - we're talking about lasting impacts on both the wider culture and for the individual moviegoer.

While there's still so much progress to be made, this AAPI heritage month can also mark how far the industry has come and raise excitement about how Hollywood may be changing.

For example, "Crazy Rich Asians" made a huge impact on one former child actor in particular.

"That movie just hit me on so many levels," Quan said. "I remember watching it three times in the theater, and I cried every single time. And, I had serious FOMO... and I go, 'Wow I wish I was up there.' Seriously. And the idea of getting back into acting, that's where it started."

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Is Asian Representation In Hollywood Finally Changing?

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Strides have been made in AAPI representation in Hollywood, and films led by an Asian ensemble cast have been hits. But there is still a ways to go. www.newsy.com/125516

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Take a look at more observational studies. This one highlights how many times Asians are just killed off in their roles, connecting to how many times Willis's mother, father, or even how he himself ended up being killed off in his roles. . In 2019, over a quarter of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) characters in the year’s top 100 movies at the box office were dead by the end of the movie, and all but one died violently.

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Here’s How Much Hollywood Movies Continue To Perpetuate Harmful Asian Stereotypes

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In a time when anti-Asian racism is surging, a new study breaks down how often popular movies depict “violence, death, and disparagement” of API characters.

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According to a study from USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, Asians accounted for less than 6 percent of speaking roles and less than 4 percent of leads/co-leads in Hollywood films. Explore more about this study and Asians in this industry through the Hollywood Reporter.

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Asian and Pacific Islanders accounted for less than 6 percent of speaking roles and less than 4 percent of leads and co-leads in Hollywood films, according to a comprehensive new study from USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.

The study, titled The Prevalence and Portrayal of Asian and Pacific Islanders across 1,300 Popular Films, comes at a time of rising violence and racism against Asian Americans and the report's key findings show that Hollywood is failing to meaningfully represent API while at the same time continues to peddle harmful stereotypes of the community.

The report's authors, Dr. Nancy Wang Yuen, Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Dr. Katherine Pieper, Marc Choueiti, Kevin Yao and Dana Dinh, looked at API representation in 1,300 top-grossing films from 2007- 2019. API constituted any character who was Asian, Pacific Islander, and/or Native Hawaiian alone or in combination with other races/ethnicities, using the U.S. Census designations.

The study looked at a total of 51,159 speaking characters from a 13-year period and found that only 3,034, or 5.9 percent, were API characters. Moreover, there has been little to no meaningful increase in API representation over the period. In 2019, API characters with speaking parts accounted for 8.4 percent of total roles in Hollywood films, this was down from 9.6 percent in 2018, and only marginally up from 7.5 percent in 2008. Overall, the report found that the percentage of API characters across 13 years of the top-grossing movies (5.9 percent) falls slightly below the percentage of API people in the U.S. population (7.1 percent).

When it came to API actors toplining Hollywood films, the numbers were even more telling. Out of the 1,300 films analyzed, only 44, or 3.4 percent, featured an API lead or co-lead, in contrast to 336 films led/co-led by white male actors. Dwayne Johnson, Keanu Reeves and Jon Cho were the API actors who had the most lead roles in the period, with Constance Wu and Hailee Steinfeld the actresses scoring the most lead/co-lead roles with two each.

White male actors were more likely to lead or co-lead a Hollywood film than an API actor by a ratio of 15.3:1 and that jumps to 84:1 when comparing white male actors and API women. The report's authors say that "actors named Ben, Chris, Daniel, James, Jason, John, Josh, Michael, Robert, Sean, or Tom were more likely to be hired as the top actor in a film than any API female actor with any name auditioning in all of Hollywood."

The report also found that 507, or 39 percent, of the 1,300 films had no API characters at all, with that number jumping to 94.2 percent when looking at Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander characters only.

Behind the camera, the situation was no better. A total of 1,447 directors were credited across the 1,300 top-grossing movies from 2007 to 2019, of these only 3.5 percent were API. Of the 50 films with API directors in the 13-year period, 25 filmmakers were responsible for that number of which only 3 were women. The 25 API directors included boldface names like M. Night Shyamalan, Taika Waititi, Ang Lee, Jon M. Chu, Bong Joon Ho, James Wan and Justin Lin as well up-and-coming filmmakers such as Aneesh Chaganty and Destin Daniel Cretton.

No API woman was credited as the sole director of a live-action top-grossing feature film between 2007 and 2019, with Loveleen Tanden credited as co-director of Slumdog Millionaire, Jennifer Yuh Nelson credited twice for directing the animated feature Kung Fu Panda 2 and co-directing Kung Fu Panda 3. Chloe Zhao's all-conquering Nomadland was released in 2020.

Only 2.5 percent of the 3,952 credited film producers in the period were API, with 85.7 percent of these API producers being men and only 14.3 percent were women. When it came to casting directors, 3.3 percent were API, with 84.9 percent of the casters API women and 15.1 percent API men.

Interestingly, the study found that films with an API director attached featured more API leads/co-leads then those films without an API director attached. A similar but less pronounced pattern emerged with producers and the presence of an API casting director was not associated with the prevalence of API leads and co-leads.

At the studio executive level, API made up only 6.4 percent at major studios (Amazon Studios, Lionsgate, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Pictures, Walt Disney Company including 20th Century, and Warner Bros.). None of the API executives were at the chair or CEO level.

Of the companies analyzed, the study found that "Netflix featured the highest number of API leads/co leads, films with proportional representation, API directors, API producers, and API casters across the 9 companies evaluated. Netflix also distributed 126 fictional U.S. films on its platform across 2018 and 2019, allowing for greater breadth and depth of hiring on screen and behind the camera. In fact, 4 out of 5 indicators on Netflix films were above proportional representation using U.S. Census."

The report also found that Hollywood continued to perpetuate harmful stereotypes and tropes of the API community. API characters were more likely to be expendable in films, to feature as the sidekick or villain or as token characters stripped of romantic and family relationships or friendships.

The analysis found that there were films that framed API characters as the "perpetual foreigner" by giving them exaggerated non-English or foreign accents. API women characters were also subject to hypersexualization, with characters often depicted naked, partially clothed or in sexy clothing, feeding into societal sexualization of Asian women. There was also evidence of API men being emasculated on screen, with very few roles in the studied period featuring the male API characters having romantic relationships and instances of the API characters being sexually belittled for comic effect using stereotypes.

To increase API representation in Hollywood films and tackle the problems highlighted by their report, the authors put forward eight recommendations, including: the casting of more API talent; moving towards more authentic portrayals of the API characters; hiring more API storytellers; work with more API suppliers and vendors; supporting nonprofits, film schools and API talent pipeline; ensuring wider distribution of films by API creatives; elevating the voices of API critics, journalists and publicists; and for A-listers to eschew performative allyship with action which is more meaningful and substantive.

The full report and its recommendations can be read here.

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Asians and Pacific Islanders Account for Less Than 6 Percent of Speaking Roles in Hollywood Films, Study Finds

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Asian and Pacific Islanders accounted for less than 6 percent of speaking roles and less than 4 percent of leads and co-leads, per USC's Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that looked at popular films from 2007 to 2019.

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In Act 6, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is brought up. This act prevented immigrants from entering the United States, despite the huge effort from Chinese laborers throughout this time. For example, they were the main workers part of building the Transcontinental Railroad. Although it was repealed in 1943, the quotas were still very strict all the way up until 1965.

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Milestones: 1866–1898 - Office of the Historian

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More Info About The Chinese Exclusion Act + Impact on his Family

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More Info About The Chinese Exclusion Act + Impact on his Family

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Although repeating this interview, it additionally goes over the Chinese Exclusion Act so you can take a look at what Charles Yu said here once again towards the end.

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Author Charles Yu: ‘Interior Chinatown’ is about roles and how we play them

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Follow Berkeley Voices, a Berkeley News podcast about the people and research that makes UC Berkeley the world-changing place that it is. Review us on Apple Podcasts. See all Berkeley Voices episodes. In this episode of Berkeley Voices, Charles Yu…

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A tweet from the President himself propels this Asian hate among our communities, thus having an eventual effect on what actors Hollywood casts.

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Charles Yu speaks more about Asian hate in the US and how even this tweet from Trump exacerbated the issue.

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"Those who were killed were more than just victims," author Charles Yu said in an introduction to his Friday keynote during South by Southwest. Those opening remarks were recorded just days ago, in light of a spree of attacks at Atlanta-area spas that left 8 dead, mostly women of Asian descent.

"They were individuals, human beings with lives and families," he said of those killed.

Yu's 2020 novel "Interior Chinatown" was a New York Times bestseller and won the National Book Award for Fiction. Over the course of a virtual SXSW conversation with journalist Lisa Ling, he unpacked his experience as an Asian American man and his path to becoming a celebrated writer. Though the keynote was recorded "a couple of weeks ago," Yu and Ling talked at length about the rise in violence against Asian Americans over the past year.

Many have linked the crisis to former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly used racist language to describe the coronavirus. Researchers have found that anti-Asian language surged on Twitter after Trump first tweeted the slur "Chinese virus," according to the Washington Post.

Yu said in his introduction that he was in shock and still processing the events of this week, but he urged viewers to go to stopaapihate.org and advancingjustice-aajc.org for more information on how to help.

Here are a few highlights from the keynote.

On his path to writing

"I went to law school like a good Asian boy, but not that good," Yu joked, adding that the original plan was medical school. "Doctors are grown-ups. I'm not a grown-up."

As a boy, Yu, loved writing poems, but writing was just a hobby for a while. "For many years, I was writing and working as a lawyer at the same time, and they were two very separate things," said Yu, 45.

In 2006, he published his first short story collection, but kept his law firm job until he got a call asking if he'd be interested in writing for the HBO sci-fi drama "Westworld," which was his breakthrough.

On representation

"I grew up in the '80s and '90s never seeing an Asian on TV," he said. "It was a once-a-year occurrence - 'Oh look, there's an Asian.'" That excitement would always be tempered, he said, by stereotypical portrayals: characters delivering food, doing martial arts, speaking in fake accents.

Growing up in Southern California around Asian enclaves and with Taiwanese American parents who were active in their community, Yu said his lived reality didn't line up with those depictions.

"What does that do to you as you're watching that?" Yu asked rhetorically of both Asian Americans and people of other heritages. Not seeing how you figure into the biggest stories can skew your perception of the country, he said.
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He described a sense of invisibility and self-consciousness that Asian Americans develop from a lack of representation on screen. Ling echoed the idea, saying that she only saw herself represented in newswoman Connie Chung growing up. Yu flipped that around on Ling; he said seeing her as a host of "The View" was a landmark moment.

Yu hopes he can help reshape that perception, but he thinks he's not there yet. He's hopeful for a bigger platform: The author currently is working with Hulu to develop "Interior Chinatown" for TV.

Ling pointed to examples of increased spotlight for Asian stories in media: director Chloé Zhao, who won big at the Golden Globes this year for "Nomadland," and Bong Joon Ho's Oscar-winning "Parasite." Yu agreed, also shouting out director Lee Isaac Chung's "Minari." It feels like there's a "momentum and permanence" to these gains, he said, but "it will take work to maintain" without any structural inertia.
More:'Minari' star Yuh-jung Youn knows how to create a good grandma
Asian Americans are winning awards and being victimized, and it's all happening at the same time, Yu said.

On dehumanization

Ling pointed out that "Interior Chinatown" came out amid the backdrop of the pandemic and the subsequent racism against Asians. (The first case of the virus was detected in China.) Even for all the videos on social media of Asian people being attacked, "we know so few of their names" and the victims remain largely without identity, she said.

Yu gave the characters in his book generic names that evoke tropes - "Old Asian Woman," for example - for a reason. Older Asian people in this country are too often seen as foreign, Yu said, and not as American. It's not shocking to see the kind of victimization plaguing the community, he said, because many have an inability to see people of Asian descent as fully human.

"It's horrifying," Yu said. "It's hard to even talk about."

Learning more about the history of anti-Asian discrimination in the U.S. "put everything in a total different perspective," he said. Yu and Ling discussed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Rock Springs massacre and the internment of Japanese Americans - hateful actions that codified the "alienness of Asians," Yu said - as causing repercussions that we're still living with. Even the "model minority" myth dissolves in the face of a pandemic, Ling said, and it's back to scapegoating.
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"I don't know if I will ever see a time where I will feel entirely American," Ling said about public perceptions of Asian identity.

"It's one thing for me to grapple with that. I live, in so many ways, a very privileged existence," Yu said. "But when I think about how it will affect people who are more vulnerable economically or physically, it really saddens me. It makes me think, 'How can we ever change it?'"

The idea that Asian Americans are "a homogenous monolith is not only wrong, it's damaging," Yu said. One thing unifies the recent attacks, he said: The targets were all Asian, "whatever signals that," even though they've come from different cultural backgrounds in reality.

This moment of inflection is daunting, Yu said, but he tries to have hope. He does not criticize anyone for being ambivalent about it in light of other struggles for social justice, like the movement for Black lives and for economic equality. "At the same time, I don't think it has to be zero-sum," he said.

Yu is heartened by the multiracial community activism he sees working to protect people.

"It's not a silver lining. ... If it is a necessary ingredient to progress, it can lead to people really starting to have conversations that are difficult but necessary," he said.

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'It's hard to even talk about': Charles Yu and Lisa Ling unpack anti-Asian hate in U.S.

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Yu's 2020 novel "Interior Chinatown" was a New York Times bestseller and won the National Book Award for Fiction.

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Americans continued to blame Asians for Covid-19 displayed through the studies conducted in this article.

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Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project

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How we did this

This analysis focuses on Americans' views of China on topics including how the country has handled the coronavirus pandemic, the state of bilateral relations and attitudes about the country more broadly. Pew Research Center has been tracking attitudes toward China since 2005. This report also includes demographic analysis comparing groups with different levels of education, age and political leanings.

For this report, we used data from a nationally representative survey of 1,003 U.S. adults conducted by telephone from June 16 to July 14, 2020.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses and survey methodology.

Americans' views of China have continued to sour, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Today, 73% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of the country, up 26 percentage points since 2018. Since March alone, negative views of China have increased 7 points, and there is a widespread sense that China mishandled the initial outbreak and subsequent spread of COVID-19.

Around two-thirds of Americans (64%) say China has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak. Around three-quarters (78%) place a great deal or fair amount of the blame for the global spread of the coronavirus on the Chinese government's initial handling of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

Faith in President Xi Jinping to do the right thing in world affairs has also deteriorated: 77% have little or no confidence in him, up 6 percentage points since March and 27 points since last year.

More generally, Americans see Sino-U.S. relations in bleak terms. Around seven-in-ten (68%) say current economic ties between the superpowers are in bad shape - up 15 percentage points since May 2019, a time in the trade war when tariffs were ramping up. Around one-in-four (26%) also describe China as an enemy of the United States - almost double the share who said this when the question was last asked in 2012. Another 57% say China is a competitor of the U.S., while 16% describe it as a partner.

As the U.S. imposes sanctions on Chinese companies and officials over Beijing's treatment of Uighurs and other minority groups - after originally resisting these actions - the American public appears poised to support a tough stance. Around three-quarters (73%) say the U.S. should try to promote human rights in China, even if it harms bilateral economic relations, while 23% say the U.S. should prioritize strengthening economic relations with China at the expense of confronting China on human rights issues.

More Americans also think the U.S. should hold China responsible for the role it played in the outbreak of the coronavirus (50%) than think this should be overlooked in order to maintain strong bilateral economic ties (38%). But, when asked about economic and trade policy toward China, Americans are slightly more likely to prefer pursuing a strong economic relationship (51%) to getting tough on China (46%). Still, more support getting tough on China now than said the same in 2019, when 35% held that view.

While more Americans say the U.S. is the world's leading economy (52%) than say the same of China (32%), views of U.S. economic superiority declined 7 percentage points over the past four months. And those who see China as economically dominant are less likely to support getting tough on China economically, instead prioritizing building a strong relationship with China on economic issues. They are also less likely to say the U.S. should hold China responsible for its role in the pandemic at the expense of the bilateral economic relationship.

These are among the findings of a new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted June 16 to July 14, 2020, among 1,003 adults in the United States. The survey also finds that while Republicans and Democrats both have negative views of China and are critical of Beijing's handling of the coronavirus, this criticism is more prevalent among Republicans. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are significantly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to have a very unfavorable view of China, to criticize the Chinese government's role in the global pandemic and to want to take a tougher policy approach to the country. (For more on partisan differences in views on China, see " Republicans see China more negatively than Democrats, even as criticism rises in both parties ".)

Negative opinion of China sharply increased in recent months

Around three-quarters (73%) of Americans have an unfavorable view of China today - the most negative reading in the 15 years that Pew Research Center has been measuring these views. This July survey also marks the third survey over the past two years in which unfavorable views of China have reached historic highs. Negative views have increased by 7 percentage points over the last four months alone and have shot up 26 points since 2018.

The percent who say they have a very unfavorable view of China is also at a record high of 42%, having nearly doubled since the spring of 2019, when 23% said the same.

Negative views of China are consistent across education levels. Around seven-in-ten of those who have completed at least a college degree and those who have less schooling voice this opinion. Men and women also differ little in their views of China.

While majorities of every age group now have an unfavorable view of China, Americans ages 50 and older are substantially more negative (81%) than those ages 30 to 49 (71%) or those under 30 (56%). For those ages 50 and older, this represents an increase of 10 percentage points since March.

As has been the case for much of the last 15 years, Republicans continue to hold more unfavorable views of China than Democrats, 83% vs. 68%, respectively. Republicans are also much more likely to say they have a very unfavorable view of China (54%) than Democrats (35%).

In the past four months, negative views toward China among Republicans have increased 11 percentage points. Over the same period of time, unfavorable views among Democrats have increased 6 points, resulting in a 15 point gap between the parties.

Americans are critical of China's role in the spread of COVID-19

Americans are highly critical of the way China has handled the coronavirus outbreak. Around two-thirds (64%) say China has done a bad job, including 43% who say it has done a very bad job. (When a slightly different question was administered online in April and May, 63% of Americans said China was doing only a fair or a poor job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak, including 37% who said it was doing a poor job.)

Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are significantly more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say China has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus: 82% vs. 54%, respectively. And they are about twice as likely to think China has done a very bad job (61% vs. 30%). Older people, too, are more critical, with 73% of those ages 50 and older finding fault in China's pandemic response, compared with 59% of those 30 to 49 and 54% of those under 30. But education has little relationship to how people think China has handled the novel coronavirus: Around two-thirds of those with and without a college degree say China has not done well in its response.

Around three-quarters of Americans say the Chinese government's initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan contributed either a great deal (51%) or a fair amount (27%) to the global spread of the virus. Republicans are particularly critical: 73% believe China's early handling of the pandemic contributed a great deal to its spread, compared with 38% of Democrats who say the same. Older people, too, are especially likely to lay the blame on China.

Half of Americans think the U.S. should hold China responsible for the role it played in the outbreak of the coronavirus, even if it means worsening economic relations, while 38% think the U.S. should prioritize strong U.S.-China relations, even if it means overlooking any role China played in the outbreak. (The 8% of adults who say the Chinese government's initial handling of the virus is not at all to blame for the global spread of the virus were not asked this foll0w-up question, while 5% expressed no opinion, either to the first or second question.) Republicans and those who lean toward the GOP are about twice as likely (71%) as Democrats and Democratic leaners (37%) to say the U.S. should hold China responsible even at the expense of worse economic relations.

Those who think China has done a poor job handling the outbreak or who fault its role in the virus's global spread are significantly more likely to have negative views of the country. For example, 85% of those who say China had done a poor job handling the COVID-19 pandemic have an unfavorable view of the country, compared with 53% among those who think it's doing a good job dealing with the outbreak.

Americans divided on getting tougher with China on trade

When it comes to the bilateral economic relationship, Americans, by a more than two-to-one margin, say economic ties are bad (68%) rather than good (30%). And a quarter say economic relations are very bad.

While more than half thought economic ties were bad in the spring of 2019, when the question was last posed, this sense has increased by 15 percentage points over the past year. These shifts are visible across the political spectrum. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, who were split nearly evenly last year, a majority (63%) now believe bilateral economic ties are bad, a 15-point increase. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents have also become more negative - roughly three-quarters (73%) say ties are bad, up 12 points from a year prior.

And Americans have mixed preferences on how to best shape economic and trade policies with China. Around half say it is more important to build a stronger relationship with China, while 46% place more value on getting tougher with China. In the past year, the share endorsing a tougher stance with China on economic and trade policy has grown by 11 percentage points.

Republicans and Democrats have both shifted their views over the past year in favor of getting tougher on China on economics and trade. Today, roughly two-thirds of Republicans support this position, 12 points higher than in 2019. Democrats, for their part, are 14 points more likely this year to favor getting tough on China, though only a third pick this option over building relations.

In recent months the Chinese government has come under fire on several human rights fronts, including a new national security law in Hong Kong, mass surveillance and detention of ethnic Muslim Uighurs, drastic responses to the coronavirus and mistreatment of Africans in the country.

When asked whether the U.S. should prioritize economic relations with China or promote human rights in China, nearly three-quarters of Americans choose human rights, even if it harms economic relations with China.

Democrats are more likely than Republicans to emphasize human rights over economic gain, though at least seven-in-ten of both groups hold this opinion. Younger and older Americans alike prefer more emphasis on human rights than economic relations when it comes to China. Less than a quarter of all age groups say the U.S. should prioritize economic relations with China, even if it means not addressing human rights issues.

When asked if they see China as a competitor, enemy or partner, a majority of Americans say they see the country as a competitor (57%). This is a significant decline from last time the question was asked in 2012, when 66% said the same. The share of Americans who consider China an enemy has increased by 11 percentage points over the same period, from 15% to 26%. The proportion of Americans who see China as a partner has remained steady at 16%.

The share of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who see China as an enemy has increased 21 percentage points since the question was last asked in 2012. In comparison, there has been an 8 percentage point increase among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, widening the gap between the two parties.

Perceptions of China's relationship with the U.S. differ by age. While roughly a quarter of those ages 18 to 29 see China as a partner, only 6% of those 50 and older say the same. Conversely, older Americans are nearly three times as likely as their younger counterparts to see China as an enemy (36% vs. 13%). Americans of all age groups are equally likely to see China as a competitor.

Americans who see China's initial handling of the coronavirus outbreak as at least somewhat responsible for the global pandemic are more likely to see China as an enemy.

Americans' views of their international economic standing falters

Since the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic in March, the U.S. unemployment rate has skyrocketed, and the International Monetary Fund predicts the U.S. gross domestic product will shrink in 2020, while the Chinese economy will achieve positive growth. The American public's economic confidence has also declined. While 52% of Americans still see their country as the world's leading economic power, this is down from 59% in March, an unprecedented high in Pew Research Center's surveys on this question.

The share of Americans who see China as the world's top economy continues to hold steady at about a third (32%). No more than one-in-ten name either Japan or the European Union as the world's leading economy (5% and 6%, respectively).

American men are significantly more likely than women to see the U.S. as the world's top economy. But there are few differences in opinion across different age groups or education levels.

While Republicans' views on this question have mostly held steady over the past four months, Democrats have become significantly less likely to see the U.S. as the leading global economy: 54% of Democrats held this opinion in March, compared with 44% today.

Few have faith in President Xi

When asked how much confidence they have in Chinese President Xi Jinping to do the right thing regarding world affairs, about three-quarters of Americans say they have not too much confidence or no confidence at all (77%). And, for the first time since the question was first asked in 2014, a majority (55%) now say they have no confidence at all in the Chinese president. This is a 10-point increase from March and more than double the share who said so last year.

The low confidence in President Xi is tied to concerns over how China has handled the coronavirus pandemic. Americans who say the Chinese government has done a bad job dealing with the coronavirus outbreak are significantly more likely to have no confidence in Xi (64%) than those who say it has done a good job (39%). The same is also true for those who blame China for the global spread of the virus.

As Xi and Trump discuss execution of the Phase 1 trade agreement, signed in January, Americans' views of the bilateral economic relationship also are associated with their opinion of Xi. Those who think Sino-U.S. economic relations are bad are significantly more likely to have no confidence in him (61%) than those who think relations are good (44%).

Americans ages 50 and older are about 20 percentage points more likely than their younger counterparts to have no confidence at all in Xi (62% vs. 40%). And a partisan divide in evaluations of Xi has reemerged. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are now 10 points more likely than their Democratic counterparts to have no confidence at all in Xi. In comparison, partisans were equally likely to lack confidence in the Chinese leader in March, as well as in 2019 and 2018.

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Laura Silver, Kat Devlin and Christine Huang

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Americans Fault China for Its Role in the Spread of COVID-19

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Unfavorable views of China reach new historic high, and a majority supports taking a tougher stand on human rights.

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This article discusses how there have been recent improvements in Asian representation in Hollywood.

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Asian characters with speaking roles in Hollywood jumped dramatically over the last 15 years

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The number jumped from around 3% to 16% from 2007 to 2022. But other underrepresented groups saw no progress when it came to visibility on the silver screen.

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Here's a summary and review of "Interior Chinatown" from the New York Times.

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February’s Book Club Pick: A Devastating (and Darkly Hilarious) New Novel From the ‘Westworld’ Writer Charles Yu (Published 2020)

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“Interior Chinatown” follows the story of an Asian-American actor struggling against clichéd roles and stereotypes, both at work and in his real life.

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Charles Yu speaks about what he wants his readers to get out of reading this book and the summary of the book itself. 

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Author Charles Yu on "Interior Chinatown"

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Take a look at prevalent Asian hate protests to end. These protests continued in response to the March 15 shootings and discrimination continuing from the Covid-19 pandemic.

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The protests come after the Atlanta-area shootings that killed six Asian women.

Rallies held in dozens of cities Saturday called for an end to anti-Asian violence, amid a spate of racially motivated attacks targeting Asians, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The demonstrations are the latest to come in the wake of the deadly shootings at three Atlanta-area spas last week that killed eight people, six of whom were women of Asian descent.

"We're out here to say that we're not going to tolerate racism towards Asian American communities," Satya Vatti, an organizer with the Answer (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB, at a rally against Asian hate in Atlanta.

The rally was just one of 60 that the coalition organized across the U.S. on Saturday, Vatti said.

Authorities are still investigating the motives behind the March 15 shootings. They have said that the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, admitted to the shootings and claimed they weren't racially motivated.

Demonstrators called Saturday for the murders to be charged as a hate crime.

"We do see it as a race-motivated crime," Vatti told WSB. "This is part of the many attacks, spike in attacks that we've been seeing across the country targeting Asian-American communities."

In the past year, the organization Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate, which launched in response to the growing anti-Asian sentiment during the coronavirus pandemic, recorded nearly 3,800 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents nationwide.

Beyond Atlanta, rallies protesting Asian hate were held in cities including New York, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Seattle, Chicago, Milwaukee, Dallas, Los Angeles and Honolulu.

"We need to continue to be loud and stand together to stop hate crimes,'' Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell said, according to Los Angeles ABC station KABC. "Now is not the time to be silent. Let's continue to support each other and speak out against hate.''

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At dozens of rallies, protesters call for end to anti-Asian violence: Photos

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Rallies held in dozens of cities Saturday called for an end to anti-Asian violence.

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The book "Interior Chinatown" is being adapted into a Hulu TV show directed by Taika Waititi. Jimmy O. Yang is starring as Willis Wu.

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Hulu has issued a 10-episode order for an adaptation of Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown with Taika Waititi on board to direct and Jimmy O. Yang set to play the show's (and the book's) main character, Willis Wu.

In the book, Willis Wu is stuck as a background character in a police procedural called Black & White. On Black & White, Willis is described as a Generic Asian Man whose highest aspiration is to attain the most sought-after role allowed to him: Kung Fu Guy. Willis is playing a part, and the novel leans into this by having much of the prose delivered in script format. The book isn't just meta-commentary, however - it's also about family and Willis' relationships with his parents, the woman he loves and, later on, his daughter. It's an amazing book, and justifiably won the National Book Award in Fiction. (Check out our interview with Yu about Interior Chinatown and his later works here!)

According to , the adaptation will still have Yang's Willis as a background actor in Black & White. While there, he "inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime" and begins to "unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, revealing certain family secrets and what it feels like to be in the spotlight."

Yu-who also has extensive TV experience on shows like Westworld, Legion, and Sorry For Your Loss -will be showrunning and executive producing the series. No news yet on when it will go into production and make its way onto Hulu.

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Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown To Be Adapted At Hulu With Taika Waititi Directing

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Hulu has issued a 10-episode order for an adaptation of Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown with Taika Waititi on board to direct and Jimmy O. Yang set to play the show's (and the book's) main characte...

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Check out discourse related to "Interior Chinatown" as multiple readers convene and ask questions to the author, Charles Yu.

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I'm Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown, and Monday night's guest on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah-ask me anything!

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64 votes, 53 comments. I'm Charles Yu. I've written for television, including Westworld, appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Monday ...

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Kelsey Chen analyzes the novel written by Charles Yu and applauds it for its textual brilliance and how it was able to comprehensively convey stereotypes and racism embedded in society.

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You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but sometimes, you can take one look at a book and know it's going to be good. "Interior Chinatown" is that kind of book. A purposefully distressed red cover is simultaneously reminiscent of a red packet, a newspaper cover, and a playbill.At the center is a small Chinatown gate; the interior area of the gate frames are filled by what resembles a prison or a birdcage.

There is something oddly magnetic about seeing a familiar Chinatown gate, estranged by its uncanny merging with another familiar symbol - the prison. Just like its exterior, this book is beautiful and jarring at once. Charles Yu's "Interior Chinatown" is not only beautifully moving but also mounts a shockingly explicit political criticism of U.S. race relations. Imprisoned in perpetual poverty and tired racial tropes by systemic causes and by himself (hence the Chinatown-gates-turned-prison on the cover), protagonist Willis Wu is desperate to finally be just that - a protagonist. He is tired of being Dead Asian Man or Generic Asian Man. And the only quasi-protagonist that an Asian man can ever be is Kung Fu Guy.

With his unsettling, deadpan humor and heartbreaking honesty, Willis weaves in and out of multiple roles throughout the novel - he is Generic Asian Man Number Three, Special Guest Star, Kung Fu Guy, and even Kung Fu Dad. The scripts from which Willis reads for stage performances bleeds into the script of his life: The roles he plays and scripts he reads from are a continuation and refraction of the roles he takes on stage. Interactions and dialogue in Willis's life become figured as script dialogue on the page; interactions on stage become impossibly interwoven with personal agency. Willis is living a script, both on and off stage - and it is the same script.

I write as if there are two clearly delineated storylines and scripts, one on and one off stage, but the brilliance of Yu's text lies in the remarkable integration of the two. Stage and life bleed into one another so seamlessly that they are indistinguishable - stage, in fact, is life. Yu's novel is a commentary on racial performativity and self-orientalization, on the way we - all of us, Asian American, black, or white - trap ourselves in overdone racial roles.

This imprisonment is enabled by exterior, institutional causes, but Yu's startling observation is that it is also an interior act. Willis may not have a choice about what roles others see him in, but every action that lands him a role - a line in the script that reduces him to a caricature of Asian-ness - is a choice. Unmistakably, Yu tells us that though our broken system might be guilty of imprisoning us in particular racial roles and cycles of poverty, as well as physically detaining us in internment camps and prisons, that we, too, are also guilty - of self-imprisonment in interior Chinatowns. Of performing our race in palatable roles because of the proximate satisfaction it may give us. We all want to be Kung Fu Guy. It pays well and gives you the exhilarating satisfaction of being noticed, of being seen, even if what is being seen is a distorted version of you.

Yu also explores one of the touchiest subjects in Asian American politics: Why Asian Americans often do not feel "fully justified in claiming solidarity with other historically and currently oppressed groups," and the relative position of Asian America in relation to the spectrum of racial oppression-to-privilege, which is, in the master narrative of American politics, organized along a single axis of black and white. The script that Willis wants so desperately to have a line in as Kung Fu Guy is, hilariously and meaningfully, the show "Black and White."

What Willis is told by his defense lawyer when standing on trial for his own disappearance are words that every Asian American activist needs to hear. That Willis's relegation to peripheral roles in all scripts, including the one of black and white, is in part due to this: "That because on the one hand you, for obvious reasons, have not been and can never be fully assimilated into mainstream, i.e., White America ... That while your community's experience in the United States has included racism on the personal and the institutional levels...That the wrongs committed against your ancestors are incommensurate in magnitude with those committed against Black people in America."

These feelings - of suffering a "second-class oppression" - have caused Asian America to cause our own disappearance from the American political landscape. But Yu makes it clear that this message is not an argument that Asian America's deafening political silence and activist deference to the supposed master racial narrative of black/white antagonism is solely because of external, systemic pressures. As Willis realizes, "[We are] guilty .... Guilty of playing this role. Letting it define me....By putting ourselves below everyone, we're building in a self-defense mechanism. Protecting against real engagement."

Yu's text is an overwhelming work of brilliance - not only are the cleverness of his textual construction and chosen metaphors stunning, but the deeper message behind Willis's narrative cuts to the core of not just what it means to be Asian in America, but what is means to be Not White in America. Everyone who seeks to have engaged, critical conversations about race in the U.S. should aim to read "Interior Chinatown, "whether they are Asian American or not. Yu's message on our self-imprisonment in particular racial roles is a radical, important one.

-Staff writer Kelsey Chen can be reached at kelsey.chen@thecrimson.com.

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Charles Yu's 'Interior Chinatown' Delivers A Political Message You Need to Hear | Arts | The Harvard Crimson

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Yu's text is an overwhelming work of brilliance cuts to the core of not just what it means to be Asian in America, but what is means to be Not White in America.

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Visit reviews in the Washington Independent Reviews. This site includes the fun fact that the book has raised over $28 million in local bookstores, which is extraordinary.

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Interior Chinatown: A Novel (National Book Award Winner) a book by Charles Yu

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NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER - “A shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood” (Vanity Fair) and a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. Willis Wu doesn’t perceive…

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Check out reviews from various other readers, critics, and other authors on how they perceived "Interior Chinatown"

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Read 8,099 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping...

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If you liked the writing style of "Interior Chinatown", then check out "The Vanishing Half" by Brit Bennett. This book is similar to "Interior Chinatown" in both the message it conveys and the style of writing. Bennett brings up themes of finding one's identity, including their racial identity, sexual orientation, and gender. Bennett does this by having perspectives from multiple, different characters, which is similar to how Yu brings up scenes written in a movie style across different time periods.

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"Disorientation" by Elaine Hsieh Chou is a story about A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness. This story carries out similar messages about how an immigrants strives to find their place in society, while written in a light-hearted and satirical fashion. 

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"The Book of Unknown Americans" by Cristina Henriquez is one of my personal favorite stories. Henriquez covers the story of multiple, different Latinx immigrants all at once, similar to the scenes depicted in "Interior Chinatown." All of these immigrants face unjust racism and have no idea how to break out of this cycle of constant poverty. This is a novel I would recommend to anyone if they like a story similar to "Interior Chinatown."