“I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain of the piece, and so cruel a villain–murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass? We are not like that…We have our own virtues. We have our rigid code of behavior, of honor. Why do they never show these on the screen? Why should we always scheme, rob, kill?” –Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong: a name that is star-studded. Being credited as the first Asian American in Hollywood, Wong eventually became the first Asian American actress to be recognized by a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; however, this was not an easy path for her.
Wong was a third-generation Chinese American born in Los Angeles, California in 1905; needless to say, at this time, the US was plagued by racism and stereotypes towards any and all racial minorities, including Asian Americans. She began her career in acting quite early, starting as an extra at age 14 in The Red Lantern, and continued working in smaller roles. She then received her first major role in 1922 for the movie The Toll of the Sea. Even making it this far as an Asian American in the film industry was a major achievement.
It is important to understand that during the time that Wong entered Hollywood, white actors were made to play Asian characters through offensive makeup and clothing (this practice is called “yellowface”). Wong continuously became a victim of racism due to her Chinese background. She was heavily underpaid compared to her white counterparts and was often expected to play roles that emphasized and encouraged harmful racial stereotypes. Despite all of this, Wong was still able to achieve many firsts, including being the first Asian American lead in a US TV show. However, after receiving so much racism within the US, she traveled to Europe where she became an international star. Wong became revered as a tireless advocate for accurate Asian American representation within the western film industry. The director of the US Mint, Ventris Gibson, states that Wong was chosen for the quarter because she was a “courageous advocate who championed for increased representation and more multi-dimensional roles for Asian American actors.”
Wong will become the first Asian American to grace the quarter as a part of the American Women Quarters Program. This program attempts to celebrate the achievements of the women of American history by issuing five new designs of women each year from 2022 through 2025 on the backside of the quarter. The quarters will portray the diversity of the women who have furthered our history by featuring strides in a plethora of fields including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, the arts, etc. by women of ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse backgrounds.
Anna May Wong will be the last woman to be featured in 2022; the other four women featured this year were Maya Angelou (African American poet and activist), Dr. Sally Ride (the first woman in space), Wilma Mankiller (the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation), and Nina Otero-Warren (a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement). In 2023, the quarter is set to welcome five more prominent women: Bessie Coleman (the first African American and Native American pilot who was a woman), Edith Kanaka’ole (an indigenous Hawaiian composer who was passionate about keeping the native culture alive), Eleanor Roosevelt (First Lady, writer, and advocate), and Maria Tallchief (the first prima ballerina of the US).
Wong is portrayed on the back of the US quarter with a close-up of her head laying on her hand, as she is surrounded by a perimeter of the beaming lights of a marquee sign. Anna May Wong lived a life full of firsts, and those firsts are still continuing even 61 years after her death. She acted in over 60 movies, which spanned from silent films all the way to one of the very first movies in color. Wong broke the ice for Asian Americans in the film industry and the results of her brave advocacy are reflected in Hollywood today. Anna May Wong: a name of equality.