ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a representative program of early Asian American independent media to further explore the complex and sometimes contradictory relationships between the claiming of an Asian American "voice" and the many voices heard on the soundtracks of early Asian American films. It argues that the conceptual ocularcentrism in Claiming a Voice and its celebration of a multivocal and syncretic Asian American voice is reflected in the larger discourse of Asian American media scholarship and cultural criticism. The chapter explores the way that the male-dominated roster of early Asian American filmmakers directly or indirectly resulted in the silencing of women's voices in these early films. It shows that there is certainly an ironic ocularcentrism in our ongoing efforts to "claim a voice" through the production and study of Asian American independent media, and that this effort has always been a complex experimental process.
