Anna May Wong to become first Asian American to feature on US currency: All about the Hollywood star

Oct 19, 2022 - 19:30

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Anna May Wong to become first Asian American to feature on US currency: All about the Hollywood star

It’s a first in the history of the United States. An Asian American will now feature on a currency. The honour goes to movie star Anna May Wong, who made a mark in Hollywood during the silent film era.

The actor’s image, with her blunt bangs and thin eyebrows, will appear on the back of quarters, which the US Mint will start producing on Monday.

Anna May Wong was a dazzling, trailblazing talent on the silver screen & a courageous advocate for representation in cinema — inspiring generations of AAPI actors.
It’s fitting her likeness will grace our quarter beside an all-American creed: E Pluribus Unum, “from many, one.” https://t.co/Cej7U45MSv
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 19, 2022

Who is Anna May Wong?

Born to immigrants in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, she bagged her first role in a movie at the age of 14. She went on to become the
first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.

In 1922, three years after stepping into the industry, she was the lead in “The Toll of the Sea”. One of her biggest hits was “Shanghai Express”.

Wong had a career spanning four decades in movies, theatre and radio. The late actor appeared in more than 60 films. She acted alongside big names including Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Laurence Olivier. She also performed on stage in New York and London, reports CNN.

What was life like in Hollywood?

It wasn’t easy for a Chinese-origin actor to make her mark in an industry dominated by White Americans. She faced racism and struggled to break stereotypes.

Wong could not play romantic leads because laws back then prohibited actors of different races from kissing each other. When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was casting “The Good Earth” in the 1930s, based on the Pearl S Buck novel about Chinese farmers, Wong was considered a shoo-in for the film’s leading actress role. But a white actor was selected to star in the movie, who would have played Wong’s husband, and she was taken out of the running. (The actress who eventually got the role, Luise Rainer, won an Oscar for her performance.), an article in The New York Times (NYT) says.

Through all of this, she was vocal about more representation of Asian Americans in Hollywood.

The new quarter honours not just Wong’s trailblazing career but also the difficulties she faced trying to secure meaningful roles as an Asian American actress in an era of “yellowface” and anti-miscegenation laws, the NYT report says.

“Decades before the civil rights-generated category of Asian American existed, Wong grappled with how to be an Asian American actress,” Shirley Jennifer Lim, a Stony Brook University history professor, wrote in her book about Wong’s career.

In the 1920s, Wong moved to Europe, where non-White actors got more opportunities but later return to the US.

The actor received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. A year on, she died at the age of 56. In a tribute, The New York Times called Wong “one of the most unforgettable figures of Hollywood’s great days”.

A biopic of her life is currently in the making. Wong will be played by “Crazy Rich Asians” star Gemma Chan.

What do we know about the coins?

The US Mint will introduce the design as part of the American Quarters Program which aims to highlight the work of pioneering women. This is the fifth such quarter in the making.

The other four quarters feature poet and activist Maya Angelou; the first American woman in space, Sally Ride; Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller; and suffragist Nina Otero-Warren. Wong was picked with input from the public.

The coins have a close-up of the actor’s face resting on a manicured hand. It is framed by dots which represent marquee lights.

Emily Damstra, who designed the quarter, said, “Many prominent actors from the 1920s and 1930s saw their name framed by lightbulbs on movie theatre marquees, so I thought it made sense to feature Anna May Wong in this way.”

“Along with the hard work, determination, and skill Anna May Wong brought to the profession of acting, I think it was her face and expressive gestures that really captivated movie audiences, so I included these elements next to her name.”

The coin includes the words, ‘quarter dollar’ and a Latin phrase “E pluribus unum,” which means “out of many, one”. The reserve side has the face of the first US president George Washington.

About the quarter, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote on Twitter, “Anna May Wong was a dazzling, trailblazing talent on the silver screen & a courageous advocate for representation in cinema — inspiring generations of AAPI actors.”

Anna May Wong was a dazzling, trailblazing talent on the silver screen & a courageous advocate for representation in cinema — inspiring generations of AAPI actors.
It’s fitting her likeness will grace our quarter beside an all-American creed: E Pluribus Unum, “from many, one.” https://t.co/Cej7U45MSv
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) October 19, 2022