Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America: Jeff Chang, Shannon Lee, Doug Palmer + Sue Ann Kay

PRESENTED BY TOWN HALL SEATTLE + WING LUKE MUSEUM

A special event with Shannon Lee and two of Bruce Lee’s closest friends, Doug Palmer (author of Bruce Lee: Sifu, Friend, and Big Brother) and Sue Ann Kay

In the decades since his untimely passing at the age of thirty-two, Bruce Lee’s body of work has grown to an undeniably lasting legacy. He went on to become globally recognized after his death, his influence acting as a cultural bridge between the East and West – popularizing martial arts and providing inspiration and momentum for a new arena of Western martial arts films. While the impact of his work can be seen across genres and generations, cultural historian and journalist Jeff Chang is hoping to highlight the barrier-breaking importance of Bruce Lee’s life to the development of Asian American identity over the last fifty years.

In his new biography, Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America, Chang highlights areas of Bruce Lee’s story that have been overshadowed by acclaim. Chang unpacks the stark reality of Bruce Lee as a baby born in segregated San Francisco and a youth living in war-ravaged, fight-crazy Hong Kong. As he found his way back to America as a teenager, Bruce Lee embraced West Coast counterculture and meshed it with the Asian worldviews and philosophies that reared him. Water Mirror Echo – a title inspired by Bruce Lee’s own way of moving, being, and responding to the world – explores how these transitions and unique vantage points created a figure whose very presence helped shape the idea of what being an Asian in America is, at a critical time in the early development of the culture.

Chang presents this new work in conversation with a panel of figures directly affected by Lee’s life– activist and former student Sue Ann Kay, long-time friend Doug Palmer, and daughter Shannon Lee.

Water Mirror Echo layers an expertly collected archive of Lee’s life with a thoughtfully nuanced analysis of the way Lee defied stereotypes and expectations. The complex biography draws from in-depth interviews, thousands of newly available personal documents, and features dozens of photographs from the family’s archive, brought together by Chang’s pursuit of heartfelt authenticity. Water Mirror Echo explores the man behind the iconography and shows Lee’s growing fame ushering in something even more enduring: the creation of Asian America.

Get your tickets now!

Ticket options include a copy of the book – but lower-priced general admission tickets without the book are also available. Book sales benefit the mission of the Wing Luke Museum to preserve and present Asian American and Pacific Islander stories.

Book signing to follow the event.