Anna May Wong

Wong was an American actress, considered to be the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star. Her varied career spanned silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio.

Born in Los Angeles in 1905 to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. She quickly ascended and soon became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom by 1924, being one of the first to embrace the flapper look.

Wong used her celebrity status to make political statements and criticized the negative stereotyping of Chinese characters on screen, saying, "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain—murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass! We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than the West?”

Wong's image and career have left a notable legacy. Through her films, public appearances and prominent magazine features, she helped to humanize Chinese Americans to mainstream American audiences during a period of intense racism and discrimination.

She was beautiful, stylish, principled and unafraid…. Not a bad epitaph!