AANHPI Heritage Month: Mattel offers up a Barbie® doll of pioneer actress Anna May Wong

To celebrate Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Mattel   introduced on May 1 a new Barbie® in the image of pioneering actress Anna May Wong.


This collectible Barbie® doll honors Anna May Wong (née Wong Liu Tsong), a prolific actress who is considered the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star.

The Barbie® Inspiring Women™ series pays tribute to incredible heroines of their time; courageous women who took risks, changed rules, and paved the way for generations of girls to dream bigger than ever before.

Frustrated with being typecast in stereotypical roles, she founded her own production company in 1924 and continued breaking barriers throughout her career. Sculpted to her likeness and wearing a red gown with a golden dragon design, this collectible Barbie® doll honors a trailblazing icon. Includes doll stand and Certificate of Authenticity. Barbie® doll cannot stand alone. Colors and decorations may vary.

When the Barbie® doll was first marketed, it received criticism for putting out only the blonde, blue-eyed image we are familiar with. Since then, Mattel has created several Asian American dolls including dolls in the image of athletes such as tennis player  Naomi Osaka and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim. It even had one of a Filipino American physician Audrey Sue Cruz.

Earlier this year, the US Mint made available the first quarter with Wong's image on it. She was the first Asian American to be have her image on US currency. Earlier, in 2022, Wong's image was put on a stamp.

The new Barbie® doll apparently is hit with AANHPI parents. If you try to order the Anna May Wong Barbie online, the website says, "Sold Out!" But Mattel promises that it is making more dolls to satisfy the demand.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter or at his blog Views From the Edge.

• 
  
  

Hollywood finally shines spotlight on Anna May Wong

ANNA MAY WONG

It is appropriate that it took women of Asian descent to put a spotlight on the silver screen’s first Chinese American star, Anna May Wong.

Actress Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians, The Eternals) and producer Nina Yang Bongiovi (Sorry to Bother You, Fruitvale Station) are teaming up to develop a film about Anna May Wong, the Hollywood's first Asian American movie star, who fought a lonely battle against the movie industry's penchant for casting AAPI actresses to stereotypical roles. 

Chan will play the title role of the Los Angeles-born pioneer actress who started in silent films and transitioned to speaking roles.

Golden Age icon whose career brought her international recognition even as she continued to face opportunity limitations in the industry and other forms of prejudice and discrimination.

Chan, one of the busiest movie actresses and outspoken against the epidemic of anti-Asian hate in Great Britain and the U.S., will portray the Hollywood legend and also executive produce. 

Yang Bongiovi, who has a reputation of backing productions risk-adverse Hollywood wouldn't touch, will produce alongside Working Title co-chairs Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. 

Gemma Chan's "look" at New York City's Met Gala was a tribute to Anna May Wong..

Wong's role in Hollywood is getting more attention in the last few years as the topic of diversity and inclusion in the movie industry has become a hot topic in the AAPI community. 

Her role in the early years of Hollywood was partially told in Netflix's  2020 limited series Hollywood. This year, Wong's image was used on a U.S. quarter, the first Asian American to be depicted on U.S. currency.

Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist wrote about Wong in her book "Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism,"  She found it remarkable that Wong spoke out in interviews on the prejudices she endured, despite there being little history for her to pull from.

“It was different because there wasn’t a lot of awareness what Asian American is and means, and she actually did speak out a lot about that,” Yuen explained to CAAM. 

“I had the benefit of all the people that came before me, all the historians, all the scholars, all the activists,” she added. “For her, she was alive during a time when there wasn’t that. She couldn’t take a course in Asian American studies.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't miss additional commentary and news, views and tips from an AAPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Anna May Wong coin is the change Asian Americans seek

If you are among those still using real money, be sure to check your change starting today. You might get a quarter with the image of Anna May Wong on it.

 The Anna May Wong Quarter is the fifth coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program. Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. She left a legacy for women in the film industry.

Wong, born in Los Angeles in 1905, appeared in more than 60 movies throughout her career. In addition to her roles in silent films, television, and stage, she landed a role in one of the first movies made in Technicolor. She achieved international success despite racism and discrimination.

The quarter is the result of the American Women Quarters Program, a four-year program that celebrates the accomplishments and contributions made by women to the development and history of our country. 

RELATED: Movie about Anna May Wong planned, starring Gemma Chan

"Each time we redesign our currency, we have the chance to say something about our country — what we value, and how we've progressed as a society. I'm very proud that these coins celebrate the contributions of some of America's most remarkable women," said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who had final approval over the choices.

The quarter was designed by United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program Designer Emily Damstra and sculpted by United States Mint Medallic Artist John McGraw.

“Many prominent actors from the 1920s and 1930s saw their name framed by lightbulbs on movie theater marquees, so I thought it made sense to feature Anna May Wong in this way,” said Damstra. “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 Mint will begin shipping the quarters on October 24. If you’d prefer not to wait for circulating change, you can order the currency from the U.S. Mint.

Beginning in 2022, and continuing through 2025, the U.S. Mint will issue up to five new reverse designs each year. The obverse of each coin will maintain a likeness of George Washington, but is different from the design used during the previous quarter program.

Anna May Wong, the first Asian American female movie star.

The other women in the first batch that the program is honoring are:

• Maya Angelou – celebrated writer, performer, and social activist
• Dr. Sally Ride – physicist, astronaut, educator, and first American woman in space
• Wilma Mankiller – first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation
• Nina Otero-Warren – a leader in New Mexico’s suffrage movement and the first female superintendent of Santa Fe public schools

The American Women Quarters may feature contributions from a variety of fields, including, but not limited to, suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. The women honored will be from ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse backgrounds.

Upcoming, a quarter featuring the legendary teacher of hula and University of Hawaiʻi instructor Edith Kanakaʻole, will be minted.

The American Women Quarters Program is authorized by the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020 (Public Law 116-330).

Look for these quarters in your change. Or shop online and enroll in this groundbreaking program to sign up to receive all four annual installments as they become available. Limited quantities will be produced, so enroll today to ensure you receive a complete collection!

“Anna May Wong was basically ‘hashtag representation matters’ decades before Twitter was even invented,” Paula Yoo told the New York Times. Yoo is a screenwriter in Los Angeles who wrote a children’s book about Wong’s life. “That’s why this quarter is important — because she’s minted, she’s part of Americana, she’s part of American history.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AAPI perspective, follow me on Twitter @DioknoEd.

TGIF Feature: 'Hollywood' with Darren Criss available for streaming on Netflix

Darren Criss will play a Filipino American in Netflix's 'Hollywood.'

Finally, it's May 1 and AAPIs will get a chance to view the much anticipated Hollywood, starring Darren Criss, who plays an aspiring Filipino American director during Tinseltown's so-called Golden Age, right after WWII.

The sprawling 7-part drama is an alternate history of that era, mixing fictional characters with real-life figures of that period. Certainly, the depiction of the movie industry fully accepting People of Color and LGBTQ in this day and age would be labeled a fantasy, much less, in 1940s Hollywood.

"It is sort of a Hollywood-ization of Hollywood itself, or the Ryan Murphy version of that fantasy," Criss, who also served as an executive producer, told Deadline. "I hope people watching it go in taking it with a grain of salt that this isn't sort of a grand expose of the time, or some sort of factual recounting.

"I think that it will become very clear from the tone that things happen [in the show] that, clearly, didn't happen, otherwise you would've heard about it. It becomes pretty clear that this is, again, Hollywood getting the Hollywood treatment."

For AAPI fans, the depiction of Raymond Ainsley (Criss) as a half-Filipino, as the lead character is historic in itself. But the series also serves as an introduction of the real-life travails of the legendary Anna May Wong, played by Michelle Krusiec, to today's audience are major reasons to watch to watch the mini-series.

Criss, who is of mixed Filipino and white heritage, describes his characer "as an outsider, which is usually ground zero for anybody feeling isolated but in Raymond's case, he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder for being of half-Asian descent, which I think is just something that Ryan has always been interested in, especially being white passing."

The line uttered by Ainsley, "I am half-Filipino" will probably bring an audible cheer and high-fives from Filipino Americans because it is so rare that a Filipino American character have such a prominent role in a US-produced project.

The only other time a Filipino American played a lead role in a Hollywood production is 2018's The Assassination of Gianni Versace in which Criss portrayed Filipno American serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Criss won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for his work in that dramatic series.

Michelle Krusiec will help tell Anna May Wong's story in Netflix's 'Hollywood.'

In the little-known story of Wong, Krusiec was able to find common ground. In an interview with Deadline, Krusiec identified with Wong's plight.

“I’m constantly being underestimated and being reduced or relegated to side parts, supporting parts or parts where the characters are in service of someone else’s narrative,” said Krusiec. “I felt during [Wong’s] entire career, she was constantly cast in these kinds of roles because it brings so much to the table in terms of what she was actually doing with those parts. She was really hard to ignore and it was really hard to dismiss her. She became brokenhearted by her career, but she still persisted.”

“As an Asian American actor, I’ve been treading that road for a long time and trying to understand my own wrestling with identity and how do I persist and how do I have resilience,” she told Deadline.

EDITOR'S NOTE: As Hollywood unfolds on Netflix, check back on Views From the Edge for more articles about the series.

Time Magazine names AAPIs among 100 most influential women of the past century

For Women's History Month, Time Magazine has named the 100 most influential women of the past century. Among the women are 14 from Asia and Asian America.

For 72 years, the weekly magazine has been naming a "Man of the Year" and it wasn't until 1999 that the honor was changed to "Person of the Year" to include women.

As former TIME editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs writes, this project is an exercise in looking at the ways in which women held power due to systemic inequality. “Women,” Gibbs writes, “were wielding soft power long before the concept was defined.”
The female game-changers the magazine  chose from over 600 nominations, include these Asian and Asian American women:

1922: Xiang Jingyu, One of the early members of the Chinese Communist Party, she became the first director of the Chinese Communist Women's Bureau.She was executed in 1928 by the Nationalists.

1927: Queen Soraya Tarzi. As the wife of Afghan King Amanullah Khan, Queen Soraya Tarzi was the daughter of exiled Afghan intellectuals. Her European upbringing brought unheard progressivism to Afghanistan. She went unveiled in public and encouraged the education of girls. In 1929, she and Khan went into exile.

1928: Anna May Wong was born in Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, was limited in her silent-film career by miscegenation laws which prevented the appearance of interracial couples on screen. Nevertheless, she is considered the first Chinese American Hollywood star.

1937: Soong Mei-ling  became the second woman ever to grace the Time cover under the heading “Man and Wife of the Year” alongside her husband, Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. She was pivotal to gathering support for China’s war against Japan speaking in front of both houses of Congress.

1945: Chien-Shiung Wu — Born in China’s Jiangsu province in 1912,  she left in 1936 to ear a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. After teaching at Smith College in Massachusetts and at Princeton. In 1944, she joined one of the Manhattan Project’s labs operating at Columbia University where “she helped develop the method for separating nonfissionable uranium 238 from fissionable U-235—the bomb’s key fuel.”

1947: Amrit Kaur was appointed India’s first Health Minister in 1947 after a lifetime as an activist agitating for Indian independence. fought for women’s education, sufferance and for an end to child marriage. “In leaving her life of luxury, Kaur not only helped build lasting democratic institutions, she also inspired generations to fight for the marginalized,” reads Time.

1972: Patsy Takemoto Mink, a third generation Japanese American, became the first woman of color and first Asian American elected to the U.S. House to Representatives. She served as Hawaii’s representative for 12 terms. Her biggest accomplishment co-authoring  the Title IX Amendment of the Higher Education Act.

1976: Indira Gandhi was the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, Initially jeered, she would go on, as India’s first and only female prime minister, to centralize power and lead India into a war with Pakistan in support of Bangladesh’s 1971 bid for independence. She was assassinated in 1984.

1979: Tu Youyou — Tu, born in Ningbo in 1930, was inspired to pursue a career in medical research after surviving tuberculosis in high school. She helped establish treatment for malaria patients. For her research, Tu was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery.

1986: Corazon Aquino, the wife of Benigno Aquino Jr., a leader of the opposition to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. After her husband was assassinated in 1984, Cory Aquino ran for president against Marcos in 1986. After the authorities declared Marcos the winner, Aquino called for protests and soon the People Power Revolution had swept Marcos from power and Aquino was proclaimed president.

Philippine President Corazon Aquino and Filipino American journalist Maria Ressa made the list.

1990: Aung San Suu Kyi  became an international darling in 1990. She’d fought, following her father Aung San’s death, against Myanmar’s military dictatorship. In 1990s, her National League for Democracy (NLD), won the elections but the results were invalidated by the junta.  She was placed on house arrest for 15 years. In 1991 awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but since then, her defense of the military has darkened her reputation.

1995: Sadako Ogata — As the only Japanese and first woman to lead the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Ogata oversaw responses to some of the worlds worst refugee crises, from Kurdish refugees following the Gulf War to refugees fleeing the Rwandan genocide to refugees of various Cold War conflicts around the world.

2009: Malala Yousafzai's campaign to educate young girls won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.  In 2012, the Pakistani Taliban tried to assassinate Malala, whose writing about her life and desire to pursue an education angered them. But Malala survived being shot in the face to become the face of women’s empowerment not only in Pakistan but around the world. 

2018: Maria Ressa — In 2018, Time named “The Guardians” — journalists facing persecution and violent — as the Persons of the Year. Among them was Fillipino journalist Maria Ressa. Ressa’s publication, Rappler, has become one of the Philippines’ most fierce critics of President Rolando Duterte, Because of her work, Ressa has been arrested and the target of a hate campaign.

The gala to announce the 100 women scheduled for Sunday, March 9, International Women's Day, was canceled as a cautionary move against the spread of the coronavirus.

Click here for the complete list of 100 women.

Google honors first Asian American Hollywood star, Anna May Wong

ASAM NEWS

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates one of the first Asian American movie stars, Anna May Wong.

According to CNET, Wednesday (Jan. 22) marks the 97th anniversary of the general release of a silent movie called The Toll of the Sea. It is the movie in which Wong claimed her first starring role.

In honor of that anniversary, Google created a slideshow of artwork depicting scenes from Wong’s life and roles. Sophie Dao is the  artist who created the doodle, CNN reports.

“Asian American actors are underrepresented even now, so amazingly Anna May Wong was so active right at the beginning of film history, bridging the gap between silent films and talkies,” Diao told CNN.

According to CNET, as a child, Wong used to hang around film sets in her Hollywood neighborhood where she was born. At the age of 11, she landed her first role as an uncredited extra in Red Lantern. 

When she was 17, she played opposite Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Baghdad in 1924. The international success of that film made her the first Asian American star.

Wong’s path to stardom wasn’t easy. She was often cast in supporting roles based on racial stereotypes. In 1928, she moved to Europe in order to pursue lead roles. Two years later she returned to Hollywood to star with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express, the movie many know her for.

From the 1920s to the 1950s, Wong appeared in several film, stage and television shows.

Wong died of a heart attack in 1961 at the age of 56. Her achievements in the film industry had been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame a year earlier.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Several years ago, noting the lack of recognition given to AAPI actors and productions, Views From the Edge  initiated an alternate award and called it the Anna Awards in her honor.

Views From the Edge contributed to this report.

Lucy Liu's star next to Anna May Wong's on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Actress Lucy Liu touches her newly unveiled star in Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

By Mimi Chen

ASAM NEWS

Lucy Liu received her Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in a ceremony Wednesday (May 1). She noted that when she first arrived in Hollywood, she lived not too far from the vicinity of the ceremony.

During her speech, Liu said that many people have described her “mainstream successes” as “groundbreaking for an Asian.” However, she noted that many have come before her.

“Asians have been making movies for a long time.” she said, “They just weren’t making them (in Hollywood) because we weren’t yet invited to the table. If my body of work somehow helped bridge the gap between the stereotypical roles first given to Anna May and mainstream success today, I am thrilled to be part of that process.”

SCREEN CAPTURE / YOUTUBE

Lucy Liu points to her sidewalk star of Anna May Wong next to her star.

Now, her star is next to the star of Anna May Wong, the first Asian American actress to be honored with a star.

Several people came to honor Liu. Her brother and sister were in attendance as well as her three-year-old son Rockwell who entertained the crowd with his presence. Other notable attendees included David Kelly, the creator of Ally McBeal who cast Liu as Ling Woo in the series and actress Rhea Perlman. Perlman said she considered Liu not only a close friend but also a part of her ‘family.’

Fans were especially pleased to see a reunion of fellow co-stars from her the Charlie’s Angels’ movie, Demi Moore, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore. Moore described Liu as not only a “smart badass” but also a “deep loving soul with a damned good sense of humor.”

Watch the entire ceremony below:

____________________________________________________________________

Lucy Liu to get sidewalk star

CBS

Lucy Liu stars in Elementary, which will launch its final season next month

ASAM NEWS

Actress Lucy Liu will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame May 1, launching Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

Resonate reports Liu’s star will be only the second Asian American actress to receive the honor. Her star will be alongside the star of pioneer Chinese American actress Anna May Wong at Hollywood and Vine. Wong is the first Chinese American actress on the silver screen.

According to the Calgary Herald, Liu is the 2662nd star to be honored on the Walk of Fame. Liu stars in the long-running CBS series Elementary which will debut its final season in four weeks.

Liu, 50, was first introduced to American audiences as the beautiful, but ruthless attorney in Ally McBeal. She is also known for such hit films as Kill Bill, Charlie’s Angels and Kung Fu Panda.

The Hollywood Reporter says Liu will also star in Why Women Kill on CBS All Access in September. It is produced by Marc Cherry of Desperate Housewives fame. It is described as a dark comedic drama about three women from different eras-a 1960’s housewife, a 1980s socialite and a lawyer in 2018. Each has to deal with infidelity in their marriage.

Actresses Demi Moore and Rhea Perlman will also take part in the May 1 ceremonies to honor their friend.

_______________________________________________________________________