Emma Grayeb ’24 photographed in the Dinand Library at the College of the Holy Cross on July 28, 2022 in Worcester, Massachusetts. (Photo by Michael Ivins/Holy Cross)
Curious about how Chinese American identity was constructed and portrayed in comics during the 1940s and 1950s, Emma Grayeb ’24, an Asian studies and history double major, decided to dedicate her summer to researching the issue. As one of several Holy Cross students participating in the Charles S. Weiss Summer Research Program, Grayeb spent weeks dissecting three comics series published during this Golden Age of Comics (1938-1956), focusing on features including a Chinese American as a sidekick to a hero, as a hero, and as a hero and a villain.