From Anna to Michelle

The journey from being discriminated against to being respected and acknowledged took a century

Last year, the U.S. Mint issued five coins for its American Women Quarters™ Program. One of the quarters bears the image of a beautiful Asian woman. Her name is Anna May Wong, and she was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood in the early 20th century. 

Wong was born on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles’ China. It was said that she got her first acting role at age 14 as an extra in the film “The Red Lantern” (1919). When she was only 17, she landed her first leading role in the movie, “The Toll of the Sea” (1922). As a trailblazer, Wong often had to confront racial discrimination prevalent from Hollywood to the rest of the country back then. 

The studios often passed Wong for playing romantic leads because it was culturally taboo and, at one point in the time, illegal to have actors of different races kissing onscreen. Wong’s movie roles usually were limited to stereotypes of Asian women, such as prostitutes or dragon ladies. Wong once said that she had “died a thousand deaths” because all the characters she played always ended up in tragic deaths in the films. 

Wong’s biggest disappointment came after MGM cast Luise Rainer, a white actress, to play the Chinese wife of a farmer in the film “The Good Earth.” Rainer earned an Oscar for that role – she won the Best Actress award in 1938. 

A discouraged Wong left Hollywood. She traveled to Europe and Asia and continued to perform in films, on television, and in the theater. Hollywood finally recognized her achievements by awarding her a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1960. A year later, she passed away at the age of 56. 

Wong was always regarded as one of Hollywood’s most beautiful actresses, and the New York Times eulogized her as “one of the most unforgettable figures of Hollywood’s great days.”

Photographic portrait of Anna May Wong, November 17, 1937, by Eugene Robert Richee for Paramount Pictures.