Thursday, June 4, 2009

Gene Luen Yang and American Born Chinese on America.gov

Here's a neat documentary about Gene Luen Yang and his comic book American Born Chinese:



The video was shot and edited by Steven Greenstreet from America.gov, who was nice enough to tell me about it.

America.gov recently has put up a number of articles about comic books and the Asian American experience, including:
  • An interview with Adrian Tomine
  • An interview with Gene Luen Yang
  • An interview with Jeff Yang, editor in chief of the new comic book Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology
  • A group discussion with editors Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow and Jerry Ma about Secret Identities
What is America.gov, you ask? It is run by the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), which:
engages international audiences on issues of foreign policy, society and values to help create an environment receptive to U.S. national interests.

IIP communicates with foreign opinion makers and other publics through a wide range of print and electronic outreach materials published in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Persian, Russian, and Spanish. IIP also provides information outreach support to U.S. embassies and consulates in more than 140 countries worldwide.
So it's basically America's propaganda unit.

Hey -- if we're showing off America's good side by making documentaries about comic books, I'm all for it.

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like this is what they call "soft power", which is the alternative/other side to going around blowing shit up.

    It's somewhat preferable, isn't it?

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  2. Absolutely. Let it be known that I prefer a good PR department to bombs.

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  3. Ah, I see Steve is out promoting :) Steve and I have been friends since 8th grade Art Homeroom. I love this video. I hope he can do more.

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