Forbidden City Nightclub

Though founded in 1938 in San Francisco by Charlie Low, the Forbidden City Nightclub reached its greatest popularity during World War II and the remainder of the 1940s and throughout the 1950s. It was the first and most popular of twelve cabaret clubs that were Asian-themed in the San Francisco area and it drew comparison as the Asian Cotton Club because of the multi-ethnic group of performers that performed for a predominantly White audience. However, rather than playing to the stereotypes or “authentic ethnic” representations of Asians, the club focused more on the styles of the time period.

The club was able to show White American audiences that Asian Americans were not the highly foreign bodies that they thought Asians were but more than capable of assimilating and adjusting to American culture. Asians were seen dancing American dances, singing American songs, and most importantly, speaking English without an accent. It gave white audiences a different perspective on who Asian Americans were at the time but unfortunately it had a very regionalized effect as most of the audience consisted of people on the West Coast and particularly the San Francisco Bay Area. A few other negatives stemming from the nightclub was that it perpetuated a highly sexualized and exotic image of the Asian American woman and that no matter what ethnicity the performer was (Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean or other Asian Americans) they were presented as Chinese, playing into the stereotype that all Asian people look alike.

In order to create publicity for the club, Charlie Low advertised his performers as the Chinese version of popular white performers such as Larry Ching who was nicknamed “The Chinese Frank Sinatra.” This provided a double effect in that these Asian performers were put into an white role and their success was based on how well the performed these roles. In addition, it denied them success as people with their own artistic vision, that they would always be placed in this role that was different from who they are as individuals and as performers. However, for many of these performers working and performing at the Forbidden City Nightclub, this was the only opportunity that they had for work because of the discriminatory practices against Asian Americans at the time. The nightclub also provided these performers with a launching pad for their careers to which a good number of them gained a lot of success in the years following their employment at the club.

Thai Nguyen