William Arenholz, a New York telephone company executive, moonlighted as “Foo Ling Yu,” a sort of Oriental mystic. Donning a Chinese costume and mask made by his wife, Arenholz would performed his pantomime act in magic shows such as at the Barbizon Plaza Hotel in New York. Around 1948, Arenholz and several other magician founded a group known as the Long Island Mystics to exchange tricks and ideas. In the magic community, he is well regarded, especially for his improvements on the snake basket routine. Outside of that context, Arenholz’ yellow face act was little more than a dehumanizing appropriation of Chinese culture for the sake of profitability. Arenholz supposedly created the act as a pantomime due to his damaged hearing, but his choice to channel this performance style through a stereotypically demure, inscrutable Chinese character was dangerous and avoidable. Stereotypes such as the one Arenholz propagated during the era of Chinese exclusion were used to justify the exclusion of Chinese immigrants and racism towards Chinese Americans. In the context of today’s popular culture, the revival of the historical yellow face – white washing – continues to erase complex portrayals of Asian and Asian American characters and limit opportunities for ethnically Asian entertainers.