Bruce Lee’s first student in America was black. His name was Jesse Glover, and the two met when Lee was living in Seattle. What spurred Glover to learn kung fu was an act of police brutality, an issue that unfortunately continues to disproportionately affect black men today. Be Water, the ESPN documentary chronicling Lee’s life, directed by Bao Nguyen, establishes Lee and Glover’s relationship as one of cultural exchange, where the roles of student and teacher go both ways.
Lee’s experiences in America are shaped by the multi-racial compatriots he makes early on, like his first love Amy Sanbo, who grew up in a Japanese-American internment camp during World War II. As Nguyen points out, the idea of “be water” isn’t just about kung fu, but the dynamic idea of American identity. That malleable philosophy remains relevant today, even informing the way that modern protesters in Hong Kong organize amongst each other.
But in Lee’s adopted homeland of America, Nguyen shows us how Lee set an example of how to be a great ally in causes like the civil rights movement, and the empathy and compassion he possessed for his fellow citizens. As an outspoken advocate for Asian-American rights, he fought for representation both here and in Hong Kong. And due to his unexpected passing, the majority of Lee’s activism lives on in his body of work, but also in how he lived his life. Yet compounding the tragedy of Lee’s untimely death is a difficult question: Is his timely stance on social justice a reflection of Lee’s open-minded prescience, or America’s lack of civil rights progress?
We spoke to Nguyen to discuss the documentary and its sudden, impacted relevance in today’s social climate.
As two Asian-American men, I feel like we’ve spent a good portion of our lives trying not to be called Bruce Lee. He was such a pop cultural icon that so many people default to him as the Asian male archetype.
Yeah, he is this model of masculinity and confidence, but I wanted to see what his struggles were, what his insecurities were, what his vulnerabilities were. Because I think that also can be a model of masculinity, especially in today’s world where we’re talking about being more woke and attuned to the world around us. And I was able to learn more about how he was informed by the people he met early on in America in Seattle. Like Jesse Glover, his first student here. He was an African-American student and he was actually a victim of police brutality. That’s why he decided to start learning martial arts, and that really informed Bruce Lee’s idea of America and what America could be.