A hollywood star with a secret that could have ended her career

Comparative Media Studies/Writing professor Vivek Bald speaks with the New York Times about South Asian film star Merle Oberon – nominated for an Oscar in 1936 – who hid her ancestry from the public. “In the decades leading up to Oberon’s arrival in Hollywood, the United States had passed a series of increasingly strict anti-Asian immigration laws,” Bald says.