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KQED's Forum

How Bruce Lee Helped Shape Asian American Culture

KQED's Forum

KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2727 Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Journalist Jeff Chang contends that Bruce Lee, the famed actor and martial arts specialist, is the “most famous person in the world about whom so little is known.” In his new biography of Lee, “Water Mirror Echo,” Chang charts Lee’s rise as an action star and his impact on the creation of Asian American culture. We’ll talk to Chang about his book and about Bruce Lee’s special history in the Bay Area. Guests: Jeff Chang, "Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America" - Chang is also the author of "We Gon' Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation," "Who We Be: The Colorization of America" and "Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:31.4

From KQED.

0:36.6

Music From Kikiwiti in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.

0:47.9

Bruce Lee is a person who became a myth.

0:51.4

His extreme celebrity largely came after his death, and perhaps because of that,

0:56.8

writer Jeff Chang contends that Lee is, quote, the most famous person in the world about whom

1:02.3

so little is known. Chang's new biography aims to fill in the gaps of Lee's life and put it

1:09.2

into the context of his times, a moment of rising

1:12.6

consciousness of a new Asian American identity. We're talking movies, Lee's Oakland

1:18.8

martial arts studio, and the reality of the famous actor's life. Jeff Chang's coming up next,

1:23.9

right after this news.

1:35.3

Alexis Madrigal here.

1:39.7

We've got a pledge break going right now, so you get a bonus on the pledge-free stream,

1:41.6

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1:45.4

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1:52.8

companion on Twin Peaks. Sutro was once controversial in the years before and after it was built

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