The performers of the Forbidden City nightclub helped to
expand the range of career opportunities for the Chinese in America.
Likewise, Jade Snow Wong and Pardee Lowe, with the benefit of edu-
cation, broke new ground by becoming artists, writers, and inter-
preters of Chinese America. Both the entertainers and the writers
showed mainstream America that Chinese America was decidedly
more modern than that of previous times. Thanks to the liberal ra-
cial logic of cultural pluralism, and the wartime patriotism that tended
to diminish racial and cultural barriers, some Chinese Americans,
encouraged by the new, relatively favorable image of the Chinese,
stepped out and took center stage.

As cultural interpreters of China and Chinese America, Jade Snow
Wong and Pardee Lowe provided commentary on subjects ranging
from China's people, its paintings, pottery, literature, to its culture.
Speaking from their position as insiders, they believed that they were
giving a representational view of China and Chinese America. They
felt no need to make clear distinctions between the culture of China
and that of Chinese America. Their representation of things Chinese
reverberated in the minds of those Americans who had already been
exposed to the orientalist discourse of the Chinese.

While Jade Snow Wong and Pardee invoked essentialized notions
of Chineseness in order to fashion themselves as cultural interpret-
ers, entertainers in the Chinese American nightclubs, having grown
up outside Chinatowns, distanced themselves from Chinese culture
and the expectations it placed on young American-born generations.
Showing that the Chinese could dance or sing as well as anyone else,
they took up Western cultural forms. At a time when both main-
stream America and the older Chinese community derided exposing
the naked human form, some female Chinese American entertainers
had no problems showing off their bodies. While many like Jadin
Wong and Toy Yat Mar had hopes of making it big and being judged
simply on their abilities, they found that the Chinese factor was an
inseparable aspect of who they were as entertainers in the eyes of
their white audience and critics. Some, like Mary Mammon, real-
ized that in fact their success had much to do with their perceived

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