American memory and Chi Cheng

Track and fi eld champion Chi Cheng, born in Taiwan in 1944, began training in the United States during the 1960s. Although it turns out that she was a much celebrated track and fi eld star in the United States during the 1970s, I had never heard of her until I saw her in an archival news video when I was researching America’s response to sex testing and sport. In fact, no one from the United States that I asked had ever heard of her (although all of my students from China and Taiwan know her). The fact that my American friends didn’t know her made her place in the news clip even more compelling: Chi Cheng was contrasted with Tamara Press, the Soviet athlete who remains one of America’s favorite gender deviant Communist icons; she replaced black women and their accomplishments in the video; and she became the voice for America’s progress in women’s track and fi eld. In what follows, I discuss what I think we can learn from Chi Cheng.