‘Sinners’ Honors Chinese American History
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 29 Apr, 2025

In a film largely about Black culture, Director Ryan Coogler took great care to include the often-overlooked Mississippi Delta Chinese

Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” continued to dominate the box office this past weekend adding $45 million to its opening weekend rake of $48 million. A critical as well as financial success, the genre-bending film centers on Black protagonists in the Mississippi Delta in the 1930s. While  ostensibly a vampire flick, the supernatural elements serve as allegory for the “blood-sucking” relationship that Whites in the Jim Crow South had with Black culture. 

Filmmaker Ryan Coogler eschewed portraying things in only black and white. To understand his nuance, look no further than two prominently featured Chinese characters: Grocery store owners Grace Chow and Bo Chow, played by actress Li Jun Li and actor Yao.

I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that pretty much anytime I see non-white characters in a film, especially of a race other than the filmmaker, I get curious: Was it an intentional decision or were the best actors simply chosen regardless of ethnicity? Was it….DEI??? When I left the theater, I did a little digging into Coogler’s decision.

The Mississippi Delta Chinese were a vital part of the post-Civil War South. Chinese immigrants were brought to the US South as part of the “coolie trade,” which found them picking cotton in a manner not dissimilar to the Black slaves they were meant to replace. Eventually, members of the community found their way to owning grocery stores.

As Raymond Wong, the son of Chinese immigrants told NPR in 2017, "We were in-between…right in between the blacks and the whites. We're not black, we're not white. So that by itself gives you some isolation." 

Despite the financial footing that the Mississippi Delta Chinese may have gained from the grocery store trade, they faced their own segregation in churches, cemeteries and schools.The film depicted this cultural limbo almost too subtly to notice: The Chows owned grocery stores on each side of the street. One on the Black side and one on the White side. 

Much like Coogler’s, actress Li Jun Li’s own family is from Mississippi. She and Yao prepared for the roles by watching documentaries on the community. Per Li, “One of the things that I found so special about the Chinese community then was how embedded they were culturally, and how the only thing about them that was still Chinese was just their physical appearance—their way of life, their religious practices, the way they dressed, it was all extremely Westernized.”

Coogler even hired filmmaker Dolly Li as a consultant after discovering a short documentary she had made about the Mississippi Delta Chinese. Last week, following the release of the film, Li posted to Twitter: “Chinese being a small part of the wild world of Sinners, I 100% know that Ryan could've made the store owners white or black and nobody would've batted an eye. to insist on including them—which has resurfaced this doc & history—now that is camaraderie.”

In an effort to tell the story of Ryan Coogler’s own cultures' often-overlooked heritage, he made sure not to erase anyone else’s.