October 20, 2022 • 27 mins
For the first time, an Asian American person will appear on US currency, when a new quarter featuring actress Anna May Wong makes its debut on October 24. Learn why Wong was such a big star in the 1920s and 30s. We revisit this episode with Arizona State University professor Dr. Karen Leong, who tells why it's time for a new appreciation of Wong, as both a captivating actress and a crusader against racism.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
No film lovers can ever marry me. If they got
an American actress to slant her eyes and eyebrows and
wear a stiff black wig, it would be all right.
But me, I am really Chinese, so I must always
die in the movie so that the white girl with
the yellow hair may get the man. That is Dr
Karen Leong quoting the woman who was a huge movie
(00:29):
star in the nineteen twenties and thirties, Anname Wong. Today,
Long may be best known for her fight against anti
Asian racism, but she should also be remembered for her
captivating talent. After all, this is the actress who almost
overshadowed Marlena Dietrich in the movie Shanghai Express. I'm Milan
(00:50):
Ververe and this is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We
are bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring
and history making women need to hear. If anyone can
tell us about the impact of Anname Wong, it's Dr
Karen Leong. Dr Karen Leong is Professor of Women and
(01:11):
Gender Studies and Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University.
She's also the author of the China Mystique, par Les Buck,
Annime Wong, Meiling Sun Chang, and the transformation of American Orientalism.
Thanks to Dr Leong, we got a fascinating look at
(01:33):
Hollywood's first Asian American movie star. Listen and learn why
Anname Wong is one of Seneca's One Women to Hear.
I'm here today with Dr Karen Leong. She is an
expert on many things, but today we're here to talk
about the celebrated movie star Anna May Wong. Karen, many
(01:58):
people may not know about Anime Wang's claim to fame,
her lasting impact. Why is it important that we know
about her? You've written extensively about her, and we're just
delighted to have you introduced her to all of us. Well,
thank you for the opportunity. Anime Wong is the first
(02:21):
Chinese American and Asian American actress to have starred in
studio films, both the silence and the talkies, beginning in
the late nineteen twenties. She has been one of the
few Asian American stars until very recently, and one of
(02:42):
the reasons she's so well known is not only because
of her striking ability to perform emotions in the silent films,
but also her abilities and her talents that were obscured
by racism. So what's really interesting is today she's almost
known more for her fight against the racism she faced
(03:03):
in the Hollywood film industry and in the United States
then she is for some of her roles. And I
think because of Ryan Murphy's series Hollywood, where she was
one of the featured characters and well played by Michelle Kruciek,
people are beginning to pay more attention to her again
(03:25):
and they are seeing again her beautiful performances on film
that have been preserved well interesting and and also that
she confronted the racism that existed during her time. How
did she manage to become a star despite that, Well,
you know, she started off as an extra and her
(03:48):
father owned a Chinese laundry um as it was advertised,
and it was on the outskirts of Chinatown because of
of course, his clientele would not be in Chinatown and
some of the people that used the laundry were involved
in the industry. Rob Wagner wrote a column and he
pretty much was one of her mentors as she entered
(04:10):
into Hollywood. She talked about going by the set and
just being fascinated, and she was able to catch the
eye of casting directors and be in sort of these
small extra roles, often in servant roles. But it was
when she was chosen and cast in Douglas Fairbank Jrs.
The Thief of Bagdad as a slave girl, that she
(04:31):
really stood out on screen literally, and she was then
cast in many more parts. She was not able to
find much many roles in Hollywood, but she went, she traveled,
and travel interestingly opened up more opportunities for her in
(04:51):
Great Britain and also in Germany, where she starred in
some silent films that were quite beautiful if you have
a chance to see them. And then she was cast
being in Berlin. I believe she's she's there's a famous
picture of her with Lenni Riefenstall and Marlene Dietrich. And
she interacted with people in Berlin in the nineteen thirties
(05:14):
and was then cast early on in N two Shanghai Express,
which was a full studio production by Paramount and directed
by Joseph von Sternberg. And it's a beautiful film because
it had all those production values, and she really almost
stole the scenes from Marlene Dietrich when she was the
(05:36):
same scenes with her and she played a Cortissan in
that film, and so I think that's how she really
That was her largest role in the biggest movie probably,
But she did continue to start in b films unless
theer known films after that. So her breakthrough really came
in Europe. Her breakthrough really did come through with UM
(05:58):
in London, with the UM DuPont films. She they we're
able to see her talent and ability, especially in the
sigent films that she was in the late nineteen twenties,
and she was just beautiful on on screen in the
black and white film, she was just absolutely beautiful, and
she also became a fashion icon as a result too.
(06:21):
But yes, there was this really interesting competition happening between
Hollywood and europe film industries at the time, and in
a way, Anime Wong really played off of that to
position herself as a star in Great Britain, and she
was able to talk much more openly about the racism
she faced in the United States, and it was it
(06:43):
was really interesting how she was able to parlay that
in a way into more marketability for the British film industry.
They were able to sort of point out how much
more open they were um to talent and um contrast
themselves with the US industry. So, for the most part,
were Asian Americans during her time in the twenties and
(07:06):
thirties mostly cast in those roles that you mentioned servants, uh,
slaves and the like, if at all not even then
usually um part of this was there was not many
roles at all for Asian American males, and there were
very few roles for Asian Americans at the time. Many
(07:29):
Asian Americans at the time were still immigrants. There was
a very small second generation community, of which Anime Wong
was less than seventy young Chinese American women in Los
Angeles at the time, and that was a reason. But
many of the reasons was that Asian American or Asian
(07:49):
roles were still played by people in yellow face or
if they were extra as many of those those roles
would be cast by Mexican Americans or other even if
they're really far away, they could just be anyone in
a costume. So there were very few roles even for
the featured pit bits, the featured roles that Anname Wong
(08:13):
would play in some of the early films she was in,
so yellow face would be when white actors used makeup
to try to look Asian. Did she ever comment on
that how she felt about that, Yes, both directly and indirectly,
and more indirectly, she spoke about the ways in which
(08:34):
she could not be cast in certain roles, and the
reason why was also structural. There was the haze code
that was instilled to promote morality among the in the
film industry. This was after the Fatty art Buckles scandal,
and part of ideas of morality was not including interracial romance.
(08:57):
There could be no love or sex shown between uh
people of different races, and so she on screen therefore
was really limited in the role she could play because
so much of Hollywood films were structured around the white
heterosexual romance, in which, of course there's a young woman
(09:19):
a young man, they fall in love, they break up,
and then at some point they have a happily ever after,
And so she could never be part of the happily
ever after. And she even um had some quotes about this.
She said in one she even said, no film lovers
can ever marry me if they got an American actress
(09:40):
to slant her eyes and eyebrows and wear a stiff
black wig and dressed in Chinese costumes. It would be
all right, But me, I am really Chinese, so I
must always die in the movie so that the white
girl with the yellow hair may get the man. Oh
how painful. Yes, she talked about having to die a
(10:00):
thousand deaths in another interview because again of that morality clause,
she could not be the protagonist, the female protagonist. She
cannot fall in love, so she had to be the
threat to the actual white heterosexual romance and as a result,
any more immorality or any crime had to have the
(10:23):
ending deemed correct by the code, which was death or imprisonment,
and for her it often was death, so she even
in a British interview she talked about how even young
children would be afraid of her and think she had
a knife of her sleeve because of the characters and
the role she played on screen. And interestingly, this even
got her in trouble with the Chinese nationalist government in
(10:46):
the nineteen thirties, even though she was doing so much
activists work to support them and to raise awareness about
the Chinese being attacked by Japan at the time, and
they would publicly turn down, you know, having her as
advocate for China, even though they happily accepted her fundraising,
(11:07):
because they said she shamed China with her depictions, and
she was so burdened by this in so many ways,
you know. I know, among the things that you teach
at Arizona State is social transformation, and I wonder if
you could talk a little bit about whether or not
there's a continuum or connection between what she experienced with
(11:30):
racism and what is happening today in the rise of
violence against Asian Americans. That's a really great connection to make,
and yes, they are connected. Unfortunately, while we like to
teach about social transformation and the power of people to
transform our society, sometimes systemic racism and other systems of
(11:52):
oppression like sexism and anime. Wong was faced with both
sexism and racism during her lifetime. Those are much harder
to transform, and she her treatment her depiction as either
a prostitute, she often even if she played a slave,
she for very little, and she was criticized by this
(12:16):
by the Chinese nationalists who wanted to show themselves as
a modern nation. She was criticized by her own ethnic
community because she was she brought shame because of the
role she depicted, but also because acting was not seen
as an honorable profession among Chinese immigrants. And yet those
(12:37):
images she portrayed still linger today. And this idea of
Asian woman and Asian American woman is highly sexualized. We
can see that even in popular culture on Saturday Night Live,
there would be jokes often about the sexuality of Asian
American woman being different. They have would have different sexual
(12:57):
organs than you know, White women or European American woman.
They would be highly sexualized and assumed to be prostitutes,
similar to how in the nineteenth century, Chinese women were
barred from entering the United States if US officials thought
they were prostitutes, and generally most of them assumed Chinese
(13:18):
women were prostitutes in the nineteenth century, and that assumption
led to further assumptions that Chinese in general did not
value families because they they only treated women like prostitutes,
which is absolutely wrong. And it was a function of
the Page Law of eighteen seventy five that the US passed,
not Chinese culture, and that led to accusations that Chinese
(13:40):
were not ever going to be good Americans. Which led
to Chinese exclusion being passed in eighteen eighty two. Now
that exclusion, that idea that people of Asian descent we're
always going to be foreign, would never actually fully be American,
continues to be an issue today among Asian America and
(14:04):
Asian America today is over six are not Us born,
and there is this fear among them today about being attacked,
about being seen as carrying a virus that has been
associated with China, that has been racialized and nationalized as Chinese.
(14:25):
When viruses are not actually they aren't capable of being
I mean, they're not actually inherently raced um. And so
we we see that these assumptions continue to take on
new forms and yet continue to carry the same violent effects.
And sexual violence against Asian American woman is quite high.
(14:47):
We see that they've been um still associated with sexual
temptation according to the shooter in Atlanta, and we still
see this ongoing attempt to for Asian Americans to be
able to claim to be fully American, which many are
and many want to be. So we again, yes, there
(15:08):
is this continual line of exclusion that can happen even
though at the same time Chinese and Asian American labor
and skills and talent are necessary to the development of
the United States today and even in the past, and
Asian Americans have many enormous contributions to our society. It
(15:31):
is just maddening to see how these attitudes and mindsets
and biases continue to play such a harmful role and
really prey on people who don't deserve any of this. Clearly,
Seneca has one hundred women to hear. Will be back
after the short break. I've been thinking as you're talking
(16:01):
about some of the very portrayals of Asian and Asian
Americans in movies today, uh and TV shows as well.
You know, I think about crazy rich Asians or fresh
off the boat. What do you think Anime Wong would
have felt about this? You know, I think she would
have been really excited. She was slated to be in
(16:22):
the film version of Flower Drum Song, and Flower Drum
Song was the first Broadway musical that focused on a
Asian American family, focused on Chinese Americans and intergenerational conflict,
and she was going to play a role in that
(16:42):
film before she passed away. And I think she would
have been really happy to see these greater opportunities for
Asian American actors to play roles that are more relevant.
Although I honestly don't think crazy rich Asians is very
relevant to many Asian Americans. I think that actually creates
(17:03):
more problematic stereotypes about class and wealth, um that are
not totally true about Asian Americans. But I do think
that she would have been really happy. I think she
would have been proud of these opportunities. I think she
would have been cheering so many of these actors on.
I do think she would have loved to have been
(17:24):
a mentor, even you know, for Nancy Kuan and others
in the sixties and seventies, um, if she were still around.
So I think she would have been incredibly proud and happy.
But I also think she would have recognized that this
could also be fleeting. She would have also recognized the
ongoing systemic racism, not just against Asian Americans but other groups.
(17:49):
You know, she was a really good friend with Paul
Robeson and his wife Islanda, and she understood how the
way society was structured was really based on inequality, and
she really fought for that. And she saw that in
an equal way that China during the nineteen twenties and
thirties had been treated as well. And I think she
(18:12):
would have been very active in today's movements to raise
awareness about that inequality. And I think she would have
fought very hard for social justice even as she fought
to raise awareness about exploitation of workers and other causes
with which um Paul Robson also was associated. It seems
(18:33):
like there's so much more she would have done had
her life not been cut short. She died fairly young,
did she not? Yes, she did. She died very you know,
very young, And you know, I'm sure some of that
had to do with the challenges that she was continually
fighting her career for recognition and for opportunities. Yeah, and
(18:54):
all the stress probably that that imposed. You know, you
have written about her, you have studied her, you obviously
feel this deep kinship. I wonder what lessons or inspiration
we can take from her life, you know, being able
to really learn more about her, especially her earlier years.
You know, Shirley Limb writes about her later years. But
(19:17):
something that both of us recognized in the work we've
done about Anime Wall is how she continually sought to learn.
She sought out new experiences. She defied the expectations that
were set upon her, and she recognized that she had
so many affiliations she cannot be simply pigeonholed to one identity.
(19:39):
She really had this intersectional um her. She was intersectionally
located in US society in many ways, from being Chinese
American to being rejected in her own community, to seeking
visibility and recognition in Hollywood, and the cost of that
visibility because we able to be cast in films like
(20:02):
other women of color actresses, often meant taking less than
ideal roles. But still she pursued her passion. She pursued
what she really loved to do and what she was
good at, and she continually sought how to create those
opportunities for herself. And I think that was so impressive,
and I think it shows how much she believed in
(20:23):
herself and how she also wasn't afraid to speak up
against the structural obstacles like racism in ways that were
often very witty, so she was able to be charming
at it and yet also really pinpoint what was happening.
And I think those are really inspiring traits. Absolutely, you know, Karen,
(20:44):
and I didn't know um much of at all about
Anime Wong, and I think my situation is probably similar
to most of our listeners. And after hearing you speak
about her so eloquently today, I wonder for those of
us who would like to learn more besides reading your book,
which we should absolutely do, and maybe you can tell
(21:06):
us about it. What movies of hers should we see,
why should we see them, and how can they be
accessible to us? Well, thank you for mentioning my book.
Um it's She's actually one of three women um Anime Wong,
Pearl Buck and Mailings and Chang. I relate them to
(21:26):
each other as located in a particular moment in time
when China emerges from being seen as backwards by the
United States to being a potential democrat ally and the
role that these three women played in that shift. I
think that Shirley Limb's book Anname Wong Performing the Modern
is an excellent book and shows insights about her that
(21:49):
are really important and talk about the continual reinvention of herself.
But in terms of the films, I do recommend Shanghai Express.
I think that shows what she was capable of, even
though most of the films she was in did not
have those production values. I would watch Piccadilly, which is
a silent film that was made in Great Britain, and
(22:09):
I believe it's now available on YouTube. The online archive
has just transformed, and so much about her is available online,
including magazine articles and photographs. Daughter of Shanghai is a
film in which she played a Chinese American heroine who's
fighting against um a plot to take down the United
(22:33):
States or to you know, to harm the United States,
and she's starting alongside her friend, Korean American Philip On.
They both grew up in l A together. It's delightful.
Um Again, the production failures are not wonderful, but it
shows one of the first and earlier portrayals of Asian
Americans as Asian Americans not speaking with pigeon accents. Toll
(22:57):
of the Sea is a beautiful silent film. It's it's
a very tragic story unfortunately, but it has really good
production values, so I highly recommend that. And finally, I
personally love Lady from Chun King And this is a
film that was made by a very small outfit that
I believe might have only been created to create two
(23:17):
films about China during UH the nineteen thirties when they
were at war with Japan, and it's remarkable. It really
lacks production values, but it's the story is really heroic.
It's so antithetical to anything that Hollywood had produced at
the time, and you can see her passion and how
(23:41):
it brings together her love of China, her desire for
better roles. It's feminist in many ways, even though they
didn't use that turn back then, because it shows this
remarkable woman leader who's like defending the Chinese people. And
the ending scene and I wrote about this in my dissertation,
(24:04):
when she shot and killed by the Japanese and she
still rises above her spirit, rises above her body on
the ground and she keeps speaking about China. If you
can look past the production values, you can really see
Anime Wong. I swear in that characterization, and I really
(24:28):
recommend that, and I believe it is on YouTube now.
It's just amazing, and we can hear your passion about her,
what she represented her time, and what is still troubling
our societies today that she had to deal with all
of those years ago. So Dr Karen Leon, thank you
(24:48):
so much for introducing us to Anime Wong Uh and
for helping us understand too that struggle against by ends
against Asian Americans that are still regrettably a part of
our society. So it's been a pleasure to talk to you,
and thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
(25:15):
I learned so much about Annime Wong in Hollywood from
Dr Lee Young. Here are three things I took away
from that conversation. First, now is a great time for
us to get acquainted with Annime Wong, her life, her
fight to be heard, and her incredible talent that radiates
(25:36):
through even dated and stereotyped movie roles. Second, we need
to recognize that even though our country has come a
long way since the nineteen twenties, there's still much work
to do. Yes, some Asian American actors and directors are
winning big roles and taking home awards, but anti Asian
(25:57):
racism remains a problem one we can all stand up to. Finally,
we should be grateful that we're living at a time
when we have access to the movie treasures of the past.
We have the opportunity to appreciate Anime Wong's performances in
movies like Shanghai Express, Piccadilly, and Lady from Shaun Qing,
(26:21):
and to learn even more, check out Dr Leong's book
The China Mistake, pearl S Buck, Anime Wong and Mailing
Sun Chung and the Transformation of American Orientalism, as well
as Shirley Limb's book Annime Wong Performing the Modern Tune
(26:42):
in next Thursday to hear about our next featured woman
and discover why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear.
Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
support from founding partner n G. Have a Great Day,
(27:03):
m
No film lovers can ever marry me. If they got
an American actress to slant her eyes and eyebrows and
wear a stiff black wig, it would be all right.
But me, I am really Chinese, so I must always
die in the movie so that the white girl with
the yellow hair may get the man. That is Dr
Karen Leong quoting the woman who was a huge movie
(00:29):
star in the nineteen twenties and thirties, Anname Wong. Today,
Long may be best known for her fight against anti
Asian racism, but she should also be remembered for her
captivating talent. After all, this is the actress who almost
overshadowed Marlena Dietrich in the movie Shanghai Express. I'm Milan
(00:50):
Ververe and this is Seneca's one Women to Hear. We
are bringing you one hundred of the world's most inspiring
and history making women need to hear. If anyone can
tell us about the impact of Anname Wong, it's Dr
Karen Leong. Dr Karen Leong is Professor of Women and
(01:11):
Gender Studies and Asian Pacific American Studies at Arizona State University.
She's also the author of the China Mystique, par Les Buck,
Annime Wong, Meiling Sun Chang, and the transformation of American Orientalism.
Thanks to Dr Leong, we got a fascinating look at
(01:33):
Hollywood's first Asian American movie star. Listen and learn why
Anname Wong is one of Seneca's One Women to Hear.
I'm here today with Dr Karen Leong. She is an
expert on many things, but today we're here to talk
about the celebrated movie star Anna May Wong. Karen, many
(01:58):
people may not know about Anime Wang's claim to fame,
her lasting impact. Why is it important that we know
about her? You've written extensively about her, and we're just
delighted to have you introduced her to all of us. Well,
thank you for the opportunity. Anime Wong is the first
(02:21):
Chinese American and Asian American actress to have starred in
studio films, both the silence and the talkies, beginning in
the late nineteen twenties. She has been one of the
few Asian American stars until very recently, and one of
(02:42):
the reasons she's so well known is not only because
of her striking ability to perform emotions in the silent films,
but also her abilities and her talents that were obscured
by racism. So what's really interesting is today she's almost
known more for her fight against the racism she faced
(03:03):
in the Hollywood film industry and in the United States
then she is for some of her roles. And I
think because of Ryan Murphy's series Hollywood, where she was
one of the featured characters and well played by Michelle Kruciek,
people are beginning to pay more attention to her again
(03:25):
and they are seeing again her beautiful performances on film
that have been preserved well interesting and and also that
she confronted the racism that existed during her time. How
did she manage to become a star despite that, Well,
you know, she started off as an extra and her
(03:48):
father owned a Chinese laundry um as it was advertised,
and it was on the outskirts of Chinatown because of
of course, his clientele would not be in Chinatown and
some of the people that used the laundry were involved
in the industry. Rob Wagner wrote a column and he
pretty much was one of her mentors as she entered
(04:10):
into Hollywood. She talked about going by the set and
just being fascinated, and she was able to catch the
eye of casting directors and be in sort of these
small extra roles, often in servant roles. But it was
when she was chosen and cast in Douglas Fairbank Jrs.
The Thief of Bagdad as a slave girl, that she
(04:31):
really stood out on screen literally, and she was then
cast in many more parts. She was not able to
find much many roles in Hollywood, but she went, she traveled,
and travel interestingly opened up more opportunities for her in
(04:51):
Great Britain and also in Germany, where she starred in
some silent films that were quite beautiful if you have
a chance to see them. And then she was cast
being in Berlin. I believe she's she's there's a famous
picture of her with Lenni Riefenstall and Marlene Dietrich. And
she interacted with people in Berlin in the nineteen thirties
(05:14):
and was then cast early on in N two Shanghai Express,
which was a full studio production by Paramount and directed
by Joseph von Sternberg. And it's a beautiful film because
it had all those production values, and she really almost
stole the scenes from Marlene Dietrich when she was the
(05:36):
same scenes with her and she played a Cortissan in
that film, and so I think that's how she really
That was her largest role in the biggest movie probably,
But she did continue to start in b films unless
theer known films after that. So her breakthrough really came
in Europe. Her breakthrough really did come through with UM
(05:58):
in London, with the UM DuPont films. She they we're
able to see her talent and ability, especially in the
sigent films that she was in the late nineteen twenties,
and she was just beautiful on on screen in the
black and white film, she was just absolutely beautiful, and
she also became a fashion icon as a result too.
(06:21):
But yes, there was this really interesting competition happening between
Hollywood and europe film industries at the time, and in
a way, Anime Wong really played off of that to
position herself as a star in Great Britain, and she
was able to talk much more openly about the racism
she faced in the United States, and it was it
(06:43):
was really interesting how she was able to parlay that
in a way into more marketability for the British film industry.
They were able to sort of point out how much
more open they were um to talent and um contrast
themselves with the US industry. So, for the most part,
were Asian Americans during her time in the twenties and
(07:06):
thirties mostly cast in those roles that you mentioned servants, uh,
slaves and the like, if at all not even then
usually um part of this was there was not many
roles at all for Asian American males, and there were
very few roles for Asian Americans at the time. Many
(07:29):
Asian Americans at the time were still immigrants. There was
a very small second generation community, of which Anime Wong
was less than seventy young Chinese American women in Los
Angeles at the time, and that was a reason. But
many of the reasons was that Asian American or Asian
(07:49):
roles were still played by people in yellow face or
if they were extra as many of those those roles
would be cast by Mexican Americans or other even if
they're really far away, they could just be anyone in
a costume. So there were very few roles even for
the featured pit bits, the featured roles that Anname Wong
(08:13):
would play in some of the early films she was in,
so yellow face would be when white actors used makeup
to try to look Asian. Did she ever comment on
that how she felt about that, Yes, both directly and indirectly,
and more indirectly, she spoke about the ways in which
(08:34):
she could not be cast in certain roles, and the
reason why was also structural. There was the haze code
that was instilled to promote morality among the in the
film industry. This was after the Fatty art Buckles scandal,
and part of ideas of morality was not including interracial romance.
(08:57):
There could be no love or sex shown between uh
people of different races, and so she on screen therefore
was really limited in the role she could play because
so much of Hollywood films were structured around the white
heterosexual romance, in which, of course there's a young woman
(09:19):
a young man, they fall in love, they break up,
and then at some point they have a happily ever after,
And so she could never be part of the happily
ever after. And she even um had some quotes about this.
She said in one she even said, no film lovers
can ever marry me if they got an American actress
(09:40):
to slant her eyes and eyebrows and wear a stiff
black wig and dressed in Chinese costumes. It would be
all right, But me, I am really Chinese, so I
must always die in the movie so that the white
girl with the yellow hair may get the man. Oh
how painful. Yes, she talked about having to die a
(10:00):
thousand deaths in another interview because again of that morality clause,
she could not be the protagonist, the female protagonist. She
cannot fall in love, so she had to be the
threat to the actual white heterosexual romance and as a result,
any more immorality or any crime had to have the
(10:23):
ending deemed correct by the code, which was death or imprisonment,
and for her it often was death, so she even
in a British interview she talked about how even young
children would be afraid of her and think she had
a knife of her sleeve because of the characters and
the role she played on screen. And interestingly, this even
got her in trouble with the Chinese nationalist government in
(10:46):
the nineteen thirties, even though she was doing so much
activists work to support them and to raise awareness about
the Chinese being attacked by Japan at the time, and
they would publicly turn down, you know, having her as
advocate for China, even though they happily accepted her fundraising,
(11:07):
because they said she shamed China with her depictions, and
she was so burdened by this in so many ways,
you know. I know, among the things that you teach
at Arizona State is social transformation, and I wonder if
you could talk a little bit about whether or not
there's a continuum or connection between what she experienced with
(11:30):
racism and what is happening today in the rise of
violence against Asian Americans. That's a really great connection to make,
and yes, they are connected. Unfortunately, while we like to
teach about social transformation and the power of people to
transform our society, sometimes systemic racism and other systems of
(11:52):
oppression like sexism and anime. Wong was faced with both
sexism and racism during her lifetime. Those are much harder
to transform, and she her treatment her depiction as either
a prostitute, she often even if she played a slave,
she for very little, and she was criticized by this
(12:16):
by the Chinese nationalists who wanted to show themselves as
a modern nation. She was criticized by her own ethnic
community because she was she brought shame because of the
role she depicted, but also because acting was not seen
as an honorable profession among Chinese immigrants. And yet those
(12:37):
images she portrayed still linger today. And this idea of
Asian woman and Asian American woman is highly sexualized. We
can see that even in popular culture on Saturday Night Live,
there would be jokes often about the sexuality of Asian
American woman being different. They have would have different sexual
(12:57):
organs than you know, White women or European American woman.
They would be highly sexualized and assumed to be prostitutes,
similar to how in the nineteenth century, Chinese women were
barred from entering the United States if US officials thought
they were prostitutes, and generally most of them assumed Chinese
(13:18):
women were prostitutes in the nineteenth century, and that assumption
led to further assumptions that Chinese in general did not
value families because they they only treated women like prostitutes,
which is absolutely wrong. And it was a function of
the Page Law of eighteen seventy five that the US passed,
not Chinese culture, and that led to accusations that Chinese
(13:40):
were not ever going to be good Americans. Which led
to Chinese exclusion being passed in eighteen eighty two. Now
that exclusion, that idea that people of Asian descent we're
always going to be foreign, would never actually fully be American,
continues to be an issue today among Asian America and
(14:04):
Asian America today is over six are not Us born,
and there is this fear among them today about being attacked,
about being seen as carrying a virus that has been
associated with China, that has been racialized and nationalized as Chinese.
(14:25):
When viruses are not actually they aren't capable of being
I mean, they're not actually inherently raced um. And so
we we see that these assumptions continue to take on
new forms and yet continue to carry the same violent effects.
And sexual violence against Asian American woman is quite high.
(14:47):
We see that they've been um still associated with sexual
temptation according to the shooter in Atlanta, and we still
see this ongoing attempt to for Asian Americans to be
able to claim to be fully American, which many are
and many want to be. So we again, yes, there
(15:08):
is this continual line of exclusion that can happen even
though at the same time Chinese and Asian American labor
and skills and talent are necessary to the development of
the United States today and even in the past, and
Asian Americans have many enormous contributions to our society. It
(15:31):
is just maddening to see how these attitudes and mindsets
and biases continue to play such a harmful role and
really prey on people who don't deserve any of this. Clearly,
Seneca has one hundred women to hear. Will be back
after the short break. I've been thinking as you're talking
(16:01):
about some of the very portrayals of Asian and Asian
Americans in movies today, uh and TV shows as well.
You know, I think about crazy rich Asians or fresh
off the boat. What do you think Anime Wong would
have felt about this? You know, I think she would
have been really excited. She was slated to be in
(16:22):
the film version of Flower Drum Song, and Flower Drum
Song was the first Broadway musical that focused on a
Asian American family, focused on Chinese Americans and intergenerational conflict,
and she was going to play a role in that
(16:42):
film before she passed away. And I think she would
have been really happy to see these greater opportunities for
Asian American actors to play roles that are more relevant.
Although I honestly don't think crazy rich Asians is very
relevant to many Asian Americans. I think that actually creates
(17:03):
more problematic stereotypes about class and wealth, um that are
not totally true about Asian Americans. But I do think
that she would have been really happy. I think she
would have been proud of these opportunities. I think she
would have been cheering so many of these actors on.
I do think she would have loved to have been
(17:24):
a mentor, even you know, for Nancy Kuan and others
in the sixties and seventies, um, if she were still around.
So I think she would have been incredibly proud and happy.
But I also think she would have recognized that this
could also be fleeting. She would have also recognized the
ongoing systemic racism, not just against Asian Americans but other groups.
(17:49):
You know, she was a really good friend with Paul
Robeson and his wife Islanda, and she understood how the
way society was structured was really based on inequality, and
she really fought for that. And she saw that in
an equal way that China during the nineteen twenties and
thirties had been treated as well. And I think she
(18:12):
would have been very active in today's movements to raise
awareness about that inequality. And I think she would have
fought very hard for social justice even as she fought
to raise awareness about exploitation of workers and other causes
with which um Paul Robson also was associated. It seems
(18:33):
like there's so much more she would have done had
her life not been cut short. She died fairly young,
did she not? Yes, she did. She died very you know,
very young, And you know, I'm sure some of that
had to do with the challenges that she was continually
fighting her career for recognition and for opportunities. Yeah, and
(18:54):
all the stress probably that that imposed. You know, you
have written about her, you have studied her, you obviously
feel this deep kinship. I wonder what lessons or inspiration
we can take from her life, you know, being able
to really learn more about her, especially her earlier years.
You know, Shirley Limb writes about her later years. But
(19:17):
something that both of us recognized in the work we've
done about Anime Wall is how she continually sought to learn.
She sought out new experiences. She defied the expectations that
were set upon her, and she recognized that she had
so many affiliations she cannot be simply pigeonholed to one identity.
(19:39):
She really had this intersectional um her. She was intersectionally
located in US society in many ways, from being Chinese
American to being rejected in her own community, to seeking
visibility and recognition in Hollywood, and the cost of that
visibility because we able to be cast in films like
(20:02):
other women of color actresses, often meant taking less than
ideal roles. But still she pursued her passion. She pursued
what she really loved to do and what she was
good at, and she continually sought how to create those
opportunities for herself. And I think that was so impressive,
and I think it shows how much she believed in
(20:23):
herself and how she also wasn't afraid to speak up
against the structural obstacles like racism in ways that were
often very witty, so she was able to be charming
at it and yet also really pinpoint what was happening.
And I think those are really inspiring traits. Absolutely, you know, Karen,
(20:44):
and I didn't know um much of at all about
Anime Wong, and I think my situation is probably similar
to most of our listeners. And after hearing you speak
about her so eloquently today, I wonder for those of
us who would like to learn more besides reading your book,
which we should absolutely do, and maybe you can tell
(21:06):
us about it. What movies of hers should we see,
why should we see them, and how can they be
accessible to us? Well, thank you for mentioning my book.
Um it's She's actually one of three women um Anime Wong,
Pearl Buck and Mailings and Chang. I relate them to
(21:26):
each other as located in a particular moment in time
when China emerges from being seen as backwards by the
United States to being a potential democrat ally and the
role that these three women played in that shift. I
think that Shirley Limb's book Anname Wong Performing the Modern
is an excellent book and shows insights about her that
(21:49):
are really important and talk about the continual reinvention of herself.
But in terms of the films, I do recommend Shanghai Express.
I think that shows what she was capable of, even
though most of the films she was in did not
have those production values. I would watch Piccadilly, which is
a silent film that was made in Great Britain, and
(22:09):
I believe it's now available on YouTube. The online archive
has just transformed, and so much about her is available online,
including magazine articles and photographs. Daughter of Shanghai is a
film in which she played a Chinese American heroine who's
fighting against um a plot to take down the United
(22:33):
States or to you know, to harm the United States,
and she's starting alongside her friend, Korean American Philip On.
They both grew up in l A together. It's delightful.
Um Again, the production failures are not wonderful, but it
shows one of the first and earlier portrayals of Asian
Americans as Asian Americans not speaking with pigeon accents. Toll
(22:57):
of the Sea is a beautiful silent film. It's it's
a very tragic story unfortunately, but it has really good
production values, so I highly recommend that. And finally, I
personally love Lady from Chun King And this is a
film that was made by a very small outfit that
I believe might have only been created to create two
(23:17):
films about China during UH the nineteen thirties when they
were at war with Japan, and it's remarkable. It really
lacks production values, but it's the story is really heroic.
It's so antithetical to anything that Hollywood had produced at
the time, and you can see her passion and how
(23:41):
it brings together her love of China, her desire for
better roles. It's feminist in many ways, even though they
didn't use that turn back then, because it shows this
remarkable woman leader who's like defending the Chinese people. And
the ending scene and I wrote about this in my dissertation,
(24:04):
when she shot and killed by the Japanese and she
still rises above her spirit, rises above her body on
the ground and she keeps speaking about China. If you
can look past the production values, you can really see
Anime Wong. I swear in that characterization, and I really
(24:28):
recommend that, and I believe it is on YouTube now.
It's just amazing, and we can hear your passion about her,
what she represented her time, and what is still troubling
our societies today that she had to deal with all
of those years ago. So Dr Karen Leon, thank you
(24:48):
so much for introducing us to Anime Wong Uh and
for helping us understand too that struggle against by ends
against Asian Americans that are still regrettably a part of
our society. So it's been a pleasure to talk to you,
and thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
(25:15):
I learned so much about Annime Wong in Hollywood from
Dr Lee Young. Here are three things I took away
from that conversation. First, now is a great time for
us to get acquainted with Annime Wong, her life, her
fight to be heard, and her incredible talent that radiates
(25:36):
through even dated and stereotyped movie roles. Second, we need
to recognize that even though our country has come a
long way since the nineteen twenties, there's still much work
to do. Yes, some Asian American actors and directors are
winning big roles and taking home awards, but anti Asian
(25:57):
racism remains a problem one we can all stand up to. Finally,
we should be grateful that we're living at a time
when we have access to the movie treasures of the past.
We have the opportunity to appreciate Anime Wong's performances in
movies like Shanghai Express, Piccadilly, and Lady from Shaun Qing,
(26:21):
and to learn even more, check out Dr Leong's book
The China Mistake, pearl S Buck, Anime Wong and Mailing
Sun Chung and the Transformation of American Orientalism, as well
as Shirley Limb's book Annime Wong Performing the Modern Tune
(26:42):
in next Thursday to hear about our next featured woman
and discover why she's one of Seneca's Women to Hear.
Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear is a collaboration between
the Seneca Women Podcast Network and I Heart Radio, with
support from founding partner n G. Have a Great Day,
(27:03):
m
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