By
Fatimah Idera
Movie star Anna May Wong became the first Asian American to appear on US currency.
She was known professionally as Anna May Wong and was an American actress, considered the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star, as well as the first Chinese-American actress to gain international recognition.
Her varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio and she championed increased representation and more multi-dimensional roles for Asian American actors.
After she got a taste of Hollywood as an extra in her first movie, she dropped out of high school to pursue acting full-time as she was able to overcome barriers to play leading roles in several productions, she was largely limited to typecast roles based on racist stereotypes and tropes.
She was also shut out of playing lead roles in romance films due to anti-miscegenation laws at the time that barred interracial marriages in the U.S. as well as any kind of onscreen kissing depicting interracial relationships.
Wong left Hollywood due to the constant discrimination and yellowface and moved to Europe where she starred in several plays and films. She return to the U.S. for a few productions later in the 20th century, including “Shanghai Express” and “The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong,” which made her the first Asian American to lead a TV show in the U.S.
Wong was one of the first women depicted on the reverse of the quarter in the 2022–2025 American Women quarters series, she is also the first Asian American to appear on US currency
The quarter featuring Wong, who is known as the first Chinese American Hollywood star had appeared in over 60 movies throughout her career, will go into circulation starting Monday, according to the U.S. Mint.
Wong’s quarter is the fifth released this year under the American Women Quarters Program, which highlights pioneering women in their respective fields and will feature coins designed to recognize trailblazing women from 2022 through 2025, with five quarters issued per year.
Also, the other four quarters, all put into production this year, feature poet and activist Maya Angelou; the first American woman in space, Sally Ride; Cherokee Nation leader Wilma Mankiller; and suffragist Nina Otero-Warren. The latter two were, along with Wong, selected with input from the public.
Meanwhile, Wong died in 1961 of a heart attack at 56 years old and was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame one year before her death.
