Yellow Face

Content Warning: This section discusses stereotypes of, and racism against, Asian people.

The term “yellowface” refers to the practice of non-Asian actors portraying Asian characters, typically by donning make-up, prosthetics, and/or clothing to signify an Asian ethnic identity. The term is related to the history of “blackface” and the racist portrayals of African Americans by non-Black performers popularized during early 1830s minstrel shows. “Yellowface” is also related to brownface and redface, terms that describe when white actors portray people of Latinx, South Asian, or Indigenous backgrounds. 

In the US, yellowface has long been associated with the stereotyping of Asian people and people from the Pacific Islands (AAPI) as racist caricatures such as the “yellow peril,” the “heathen,” the buffoonish laundryman, the inscrutable mystic, the submissive lotus flower, and the hypersexualized dragon lady. Some of the earliest examples of yellowface date to the early 1900s, when American magician William Ellsworth Robinson performed as Chung Ling Soo and white actors portrayed the roles of Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, and Cio-Cio San from Madame Butterfly. Yellowface performances and “whitewashing” (the casting of white performers to replace non-white characters) continue into the 21st century with much-criticized portrayals in film, television, and theater, such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Kung Fu (1972-75), Miss Saigon (1991), Cloud Atlas (2012), Aloha (2015), and Ghost in the Shell (2017).