For many, Bruce Lee is the first name that comes to mind when thinking of San Francisco’s most iconic figures. Now, the city’s Chinatown is honoring that legacy with a statue.
A bronze Bruce Lee statue will be erected in San Francisco’s Chinatown, his 1940 birthplace, following a proposal by memorabilia collector Jeff Chinn to the Chinese Historical Society of America.
The 6ft (2-meter) statue will depict Lee in a prowling stance, ready to strike; the South Korean artist Arnie Kim will design and create the piece. The Rose Pak Community Fund has pledged $50,000, and the historical society is fundraising an additional $200,000. Justin Hoover, the group’s director of special projects, said the project reflects a much larger sentiment felt by the community.
“This story is a story, not only of what it means to be Chinese in America, it is a story of mutual aid. It’s about helping each other,” said Hoover during the project’s launch event last week. “It’s about solidarity, and a story that is about not only the Chinese in America, but as a Chinese American story that’s a story about all Americans.”
The statue comes at a time when Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders remain concerned about the spike in violence in recent years, especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.
A national survey by Stop AAPI Hate, a US-based coalition focused on fighting discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, found that 49% of AAPIs in the US experienced some form of race-based hate in 2023. Asian Americans account for about 34% of San Francisco’s population.
“This statue project combats Asian and Asian American hate by uplifting togetherness and unity,” said Janice Pettey, the executive director of the Chinese Historical Society of America.
Lee starred in just five films before dying at 32 from an allergic reaction to a painkiller. Despite dying at a young age, he became a legendary Asian American action hero, all while defying Hollywood’s racial stereotypes at the time. He famously rejected roles that required him to wear a queue, or braided pigtail, or embody the servile, desexualized tropes often forced onto Chinese men.
In an era when it was typical for white actors to portray Asian characters by donning prosthetics and slanted-eye makeup, Lee lost out on major roles, one of which was a Shaolin monk in Kung Fu, which cast white actor David Carradine over him.
“An often unseen side of Bruce Lee was his place in civil rights advocacy as a practitioner of kung fu,” Pettey said. “Against cultural tradition, he welcomed people of all backgrounds to his studio, including Black American, Caucasian and other Asian American students.”
“Bruce Lee was a unifier who embraced people of all races and genders, and spotlighted them in his own martial arts films, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar,” Pettey added. The NBA basketball star Abdul-Jabbar trained under Lee and appeared in his film Game of Death in 1972.
The statue of Lee is also part of broader efforts to boost appreciation of the Bay Area’s Chinese heritage. In Oakland, a new proposal is on the table to change the name of the Lake Merritt Bart station to “Oakland Chinatown”, but the funding source for the estimated $750,000 project remains unclear.
The statue in San Francisco will depict Lee facing off against Han, the one-handed crime boss from Enter the Dragon, Lee’s most iconic film, which he never lived to see. He died a month before its release.
“Having a public statue to educate others about his San Francisco Chinatown roots and his Chinese American heritage will serve as a living tribute to his incredible story as a martial artist, filmmaker, philosopher, businessman and loving father and husband,” Pettey said.
With birthright citizenship hanging by a thread in the US, Pettey said the group will continue to amplify San Francisco voices such as Lee’s and Wong Kim Ark, who provided the interpretation of the 14th amendment’s birthright provision.
Pettey called them “heroes that we would appreciatively amplify to ensure that the narrative of the Chinese in America is shared and explored”.
