Anna May Wong will be first Asian American

Anna May Wong: The United States’ first coin to feature an Asian American is the U.S. Mint will start delivering coins on Monday that feature actress Anna May Wong.

Anna May Wong will be first Asian American to be on U.S. currency

As the first Asian American movie star in Hollywood, Wong fought for greater representation and fewer stereotypical Asian American roles.

When “yellowface,” or the practise of white people dressing like Asians, was popular in the early 20th century, when Wong, who died in 1961, was a white man, he struggled to find work in Hollywood and wore makeup, as well as anti-miscegenation laws that made interracial relationships illegal.

Anna May Wong

The parts she did get were racial stereotype-filled, and she was paid too little—Walter Oland, who only appeared in the first 23 minutes of Daughter of the Dragon, received $12,000, while she received $6,000 for the lead role.

Marlene Dietrich earned $78,166 for Shanghai Express while Wong earned $6,000.
After his experience with this racial discrimination in Hollywood, Wong relocated to Europe and starred in English, French, and German movies.

In a 1933 interview, she expressed her tiredness with the Hollywood roles she was determined to play to the Los Angeles Times.

Why is the screen Chinese so frequently the villain of the story and such a ruthless foe—murderous, clever, a snake in the grass? she questioned the newspaper.

Wong’s career spanned 60 movies, many of which were silent pictures, and in 1960, she was earned with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The American Women Quarters Program, which runs from 2022 to 2025, celebrates five trailblazing women in American history. Wong is shown on the sixth coin to be released this year.

The United States Mint is anticipated to create more than 300 million Wong quarters at its facilities in Denver and Philadelphia.

Wong was referred to as “a courageous campaigner who championed for more representation and more multi-dimensional parts for Asian American performers” by Mint Director Ventris Gibson.

Sculptor Laura Gardin Fraser, the first woman to design a coin for the US in 1921, will have painted a portrait of George Washington on the front of the coins. The back of the coins will include a close-up of Wong with her head resting on her hand.

Poet Maya Angelou, astronaut Sally Ride, suffragist and politician Nina Otero-Warren, and Wilma Mankiller, the first female main chief of the Cherokee Nation, were the other four women participating in the event this year.