thinker. In an age of cynicism and self-interest, he
dares to resurrect the concepts of honor and personal
integrity, even at the expense of infamy and unsuccess.
Selling out is not the goal, or even an option. Here,
telling the truth is paramount.
Chin is the son of an immigrant Chinese father and a
4th-generation Chinatown mother. After getting his
A.B. in English in 1966, he became the first Chinese
American brakeman on the Southern Pacific since the
Chinese built the Central Pacific Railroad over the
Sierras. He went to Cuba before Kennedy's embargo,
ostensibly in search of a flamenco guitar. He wrote
documentaries for KING-TV in Seattle, and scripts for
Sesame Street. The American Place Theater in New
York mounted The Chickencoop Chinaman in 1972,
making him the first recognized Chinese-American
playwright, followed later by The Year of The Dragon.
He founded a theater in San Francisco, where he
directed until 1977. During this time, Chin continued to
write about Chinese- and Japanese-American history
and culture, literature and theater for magazines, TV
and literary journals while teaching and lecturing
throughout the country. He was the main editor of
Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, to
date the most influential collection of Asian American
literature. The Big Aiiieeeee! went on to explore history
and stereotypes. His own work is informed by the Asian
heroic tradition found in The Three Kingdoms and
Outlaws of the Marsh. His short stories (The Chinaman
Pacific & Frisco R.R. Co., 1988), novels (Donald Duk,
1991 and Gunga Din Highway, 1994), essays
(Bulletproof Buddhists, 1999) and documentary novel
(Born in the USA: A Story of Japanese America,
1889-1947, 2002) are still in print.
Unlike conventional biographies, What's Wrong With
Frank Chin does not stop within the confines of one
man's personal details or the controversy raging over
him during the past 35 years, but expands to explore
the much larger implications of the literary, ideological
and cultural changes in Asian America. Chin is
arguably the father/godfather/ayatollah of modern
Asian Americanism. His original and voluminous work
will continue to be the subject of scholarly discourse
and analysis. This documentary goes a long way to
ensure that succeeding generations realize the
richness of their American history.
WWW.FrankChin is a continuous road trip. As the Old
West countryside of California slips by, we can't help
but admire him as a storyteller, because he's done way
too much research and oral history to hold it all in. He's
unafraid to lay into other writers for their
disinformational books, and he dissects the nonsensical
notions of pop culture.
He goes on and on about the effeminate Charlie Chan,
and his interviews with the white actors who played
Chan, who thought they were sensitive and doing us a
favor. He obsessively rants about Charlie Chan. We
pass the Charlie Chan (!) Print Shop in Hollywood.
In Los Angeles, Chin's play The Year of the Dragon is
being produced for the first time in 20 years at
East-West Players. Set in Chinatown, the story is a
classic father-son conflict of the stature of Edward
Albee or Tennessee Williams. Several of the cast
members have performed this play before, but now
they're older, and Chin is there to fine-tune the script
and answer their questions. To do this, Chin must
violate his oath never to set foot in a place named after
David Henry Hwang (a writer who recast Chinese myths
to popular acclaim). In order to make the play "real", he
sets aside his pride to explain bits of Chinatown
homelife trivia, and brings pictures of Chinese heroes
that will wind up on the walls of the set. He explains the
maligning of Fa Muklan by Maxine Hong Kingston and
Disney, and why it is "fake".
In a noisy restaurant, Chin has dinner with Mako, the
play's director. He reveals that when he started the
Asian American Theater Workshop in the early 1970s,
he modeled it after the Abbey Playhouse in Dublin, and
had hoped to foster a vital community of writers and
artists. He did this in San Francisco to counter the
actors' "mania for Hollywood".
At home, in a small dark bedroom, books, magazines,
and papers are piled high. Small bookcases are
perched on tables and milkcrates, filled with more
books, audiotapes, gewgaws, and masks. A large,
four-engined WWII bomber hangs from the ceiling, its
balsa wood skeleton showing. Chin sits cross-legged
on the floor, an IMac on a low table in front of him. He's
leaning against a daybed. There's stuff on it. The only
chair in the room has stuff on it. The camera swings
past an old TV and junk-littered table tops. Country
music is on the radio, while WWII B-movies flicker in the
room.
Writers (and his critics) tell stories about him: Lawson
Inada, Alan Lau, Shawn Wong, Elaine Kim, Jeffery
Chan, King-kok Cheung, among others. The
well-known war between Chin and Kingston, initiated on
publication of her first book in 1976, and peaking with
Kingston's depiction of Chin as a monkey (in her novel
Tripmaster Monkey), has transpired without the two
ever meeting.
We follow him out to his wheels, a beat-up red
econobox. It's hot and smoggy and the glare outside
mutes all the colors. He talks about selling out and
being uncommercial.
So, what IS wrong with Frank Chin? He stands his
ground on historical points. He's well-reasoned but
passionate because he's done the deep research and
he knows he's right. He's never credited by anybody
for this scholarship. The "Day of Remembrance" is a
huge event (and, now, a tradition). It is the theatrical
antidote to decades of Pearl Harbor 'day of infamy'
propaganda as an unheralded Chin masterminds the
jumpstart of a redress movement that would bring token
reparation and Presidential apologies to the unjustly
incarcerated Japanese Americans. Then he uncovers
the resisters, men who were unwilling to be victims and
refused to be drafted into the US armed forces. This
leads to the unveiling of Moses Masaoka, lionized
leader of the Japanese American Citizens League, as a
pro-concentration camp FBI spy.
What's Wrong With Frank Chin? has been in the works
for four years. It was produced with a fellowship from
The Rockefeller Foundation, and grants from Cherry
Sky Films, Shoshana Arai, Russell Leong, and Jean
Lau. While some sources originate on Super8mm and
l6mm film, 1/2" B/W and VHS videotape, most material
was recorded to the DVCam format on a Sony PD150
camera. Editing and finishing were accomplished using
three versions of Final Cut Pro.
Connie Hwang, Dean Wong, Susan Nees, Kelly McDermett,
Sam Chin