An archive,
and an argument.
There is a moment, if you grew up Cantonese-American, when you realize your culture was already inside American culture.
It was on the screen. It was in the kitchen of someone else's movie. It was a Black actor in 2001 speaking your grandmother's tongue, and the joke was that it was not a joke.
Cantonese American is a living archive of those moments: films, shows, lyrics, slang, storefronts, campaign stops, signs, and everyday bits of public life where Cantonese-speaking culture shows up not as foreign, but as American.
It is also an argument: that what counts as American has always been larger and stranger and more interesting than the brochure version. The archive starts with scenes that made us feel at home, and keeps them in a form that can be cited, corrected, and kept.
A project about who gets to count as American, told through language, culture, and the everyday.
The first series: scenes from American media and public life where Cantonese-speaking culture shows up and belongs.
Each entry keeps its commentary and cultural notes even if hosted media shifts to an official link or comes down.