Issue 95 | who is anna may wong, and why does she matter?
An interview with Katie Gee Salisbury
Dear Cosmos Community,
It’s officially the third year I’ve “celebrated” Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and to be honest, I’m still sorting out what that means to me. I didn’t grow up celebrating May as “our month”; in truth, I didn’t even know “we” had a month. And so I approach all of it with a degree of skepticism — what keeps this month from becoming a marketing slogan, or worse, another casualty of the representation economy? I don’t have answers, but my instinct was to look to history.
I found some revelations, but ultimately, more questions in the story of Anna May Wong, an Asian American actress from the 1920s and 30s whose story was lost to history until recently. Her re-emergence coincided with the post-Crazy Rich Asians momentum in Hollywood; in fact, actress Gemma Chan is producing and starring in a biopic about Anna May. Still, much remains unknown about Anna May, but I was fortunate enough to get to know community member Katie Gee Salisbury, who is at work on a biography of Anna May Wong! I hope this interview illuminates, or perhaps even complicates, our present day conversations about what it means to tell Asian American stories, and how, in the far future, they might be remembered, or not.
Karen Mok: Why Anna May Wong, and why now?
Katie Gee Salisbury: I’ve been obsessed with Anna May Wong since I was 19, when I first learned who she was. I was interning at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles the summer after my freshman year in college. I saw a photograph of her, and I was really startled to see a woman from the 1930s who was Chinese and American but also very elegant and clearly important because she was in a parade procession in the photograph.
It actually reminded me of stories of my mom’s family growing up in Chinatown in Los Angeles, and I think that fueled part of my desire to know who Anna May was. I’m a fifth generation Chinese American, so my great-grandfathers both came over from China, and they built their lives in California. One was quite prominent in Chinatown in Los Angeles, so there’s overlap in the contours of Anna’s story and heritage with that of my own family.
I was also fascinated by this question: How could this woman who was a movie star and so famous be completely forgotten today?
I knew I wanted to write about Anna May Wong, but I didn’t have the tools yet. After college, I worked in book publishing as an editor in New York and learned, you know, how do you tell a compelling story, how do you package it in a way that’s appealing to the public? Eventually I went freelance, and with that flexibility, I was able to focus on my own writing and start digging into the research. It took me a few years of that before I felt like I could put a book proposal together. I sold the book at the beginning of the pandemic, and now I’m here trying to finish the book!
KM: “She was forgotten” – ooph, that really got me. Why do you think that happened to Anna May Wong?
KS: Who tells the story matters. The people who’ve been telling the story don’t care about Anna May Wong, if that makes sense. She wasn’t on the radar of people who controlled books, television, and media for the longest time. And the people who did care about her, they weren’t in those industries in a meaningful way.
From my research, I’ve learned about so many other Asian Americans who were doing important work in Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s, and they’ve also been completely forgotten. It really goes back to networks of people in power.
KM: Now you’re doing this incredible work to bring Anna May Wong’s story to life, and in March Gemma Chan announced that she’s developing a biopic of Anna May Wong with producer Nina Yang Bongiovi. What do you think has changed in Hollywood or in publishing that’s made her story feel relevant again?
KS: Demographics are changing, and with that, a growing awareness of the purchasing power of Asian Americans. In the film world especially, we’ve made huge leaps and bounds in the last 5-10 years – there are many more Asians in the industry who have power, who are writing, producing, and directing, and that really changes what gets green-lit.
In book publishing, it’s changing but very slowly! There are more editors of color now but they still aren’t necessarily the ones in power who can acquire projects and make them successful. This is something I experienced when my agent and I went out with my book proposal. I met with four editors – three were people of color, including two who were Asian American. They all got the book, they understood the concept, but it was hard for certain editors to get their publishing house’s support. They struggled to find comparison titles (“comps”) because there aren’t really any biographies of Asian American women, especially historic Hollywood stars, that have been successful.
That just shows the dearth of books about Asian Americans that have been bestsellers or are well known in the public discourse.
KM: That process feels, well, to say challenging might be a euphemism but let’s go with that! It sounds like creators still have to do a lot of work to make the case for Asian American stories. In your newsletter, you write about the humiliation, stereotyping, and flattening Anna May Wong had to endure just to have a career in Hollywood. How do you think she did it?
KS: I’m amazed at her diplomacy and poise. She was really good at being a public person, but I think that came at a cost to her personally. She was an artist, acting was her calling, and she knew that at fourteen. I think she just thought, I have to do this, this is what I want to do with my life. And nothing was going to stop her.
She was always good at coming up with a plan B. When she couldn’t get the parts she wanted in America, she realized she knew all these German directors and producers, and she decided to make films there. So she was very resourceful in finding a way to make her dreams and goals happen despite the challenges.
KM: Here’s a potentially controversial question: When writing about Anna May Wong’s life, do you feel yourself evaluating her choices with the lens of today’s racial discourse? A lens that can be punishing of people who “play the game,” a lens that can be quick to say they’re white adjacent.
KS: I spend a lot of time mentally in the 1920s and 30s, and I acknowledge there are real limitations to people’s worldviews in that era – the way they thought about race, women, or marriage. Anna May wanted to work. She realized that sometimes she’d have to take on certain parts.
Her films are so wildly different – depending on the genre or the director – and some of them are really terrible, in my opinion. If you look at her career evolution, you do start to see her make more demands over time. When she started, she was often cast as the exotic dancing girl, wearing skimpy outfits, and in many films, she was barely in the film, like in it for 5 minutes and then died – she died a lot in films! Even when she was the star. But I feel she tried to bring as much dignity to the characters as she could.
From her point of view, it was better for people to see her than not at all.
KM: Ah, that is such a different paradigm than today. We’re quite fortunate that today it’s not such a binary of seen versus not seen at all, which really speaks to the progress that has been made in Hollywood. I feel like it can be easy for us present-day folks to lose sight of that progress because Asian American film history really isn’t widely known.
KS: In her personal correspondence with Carl Van Vechten, she often shared updates about projects she was considering, and she’d say things like, oh this would be a good project for China.
Back then, Asian American as a term didn’t exist. This idea of being Chinese American was very confusing for most people.
So Anna May actually felt that she was representing China. She really cared about representing the culture well. She was striving for that as best as she could.
KM: Do you feel pressure to represent “China” or “Chinese” identity in your work?
KS: Versus Chinese American identity, or…
KM: I’m trying to think of what to call it! My personal bias coming in here – “Chinese American” is still an ambiguous term for me, and perhaps me not knowing exactly what that means contributes to feeling a kind of pressure or expectation if I do use that term…
KS: I grew up in southern California, in Arcadia, and ironically when my mom moved there in the late 70s, she was the only Asian person for miles. Apparently there was still language on the property covenant that said, “NO Chinese person can reside here unless they are a servant.”
KM: [gasps]
KS: But then by the time I was in high school, all my neighbors were Chinese, or I should say they were Taiwanese American. So I grew up in a majority Asian American community, and I wanted to be like everyone else, but not everyone saw me as Chinese. I’m fifth generation. My mom doesn’t speak Chinese. I went to college and I studied Mandarin and I studied abroad in China, and I am still interested in China. But that whole experience made me realize, that’s not who I am. My family has ties to China, but my family is American, and we have a very specific story. Going through that whole experience gave me the freedom to be who I am, and not have to prove something to others. Sorry I feel like I got a little off track. I don’t know if that answered your question!
KM: You did! Your story provides more nuance and dimension to the term “Asian American” – it has different definitions across generations. I really appreciate that nuance – I would say I don’t come across as many folks who are fourth and fifth-generation Asian American, but in the future that will be the norm for many folks. I’m curious, has your research on what representation was possible in the 1920s or 30s complicated your understanding of the word “representation”?
KS: I think representation is the baseline. The lowest hanging fruit is to see yourself reflected visually and literally in the world around you. So the first step is to get more Asian actors in films and television. But we see how they’re reduced to playing characters that are stereotypical or written without nuance or relatability. So then we have to correct for representation in the writing room, production, financing, and distribution.
That was missing for Anna May Wong. At one point, she actually had her own production company, but then it turned out the financial backer was scamming her. She had all these ambitions to produce her own stories, but she didn’t have the resources or the money. I think that’s what’s changed today. We have enough generations of people who’ve gone into media, who’ve had success, and who can now pull the strings. So that’s why Gemma Chan and Nina Yang Bongiovi can say, hey we’re just going to make this film about Anna May Wong. I don’t think that could have happened even twenty years ago.
KM: My last question is about the name of your newsletter, Half-Caste Woman. You wrote in your About page that this term might make people uncomfortable, but you’re very interested in exploring ideas that can have that effect. What draws you to uncomfortable ideas, words, identities, people like Anna May Wong, who by all means didn’t fit a conventional grain?
KS: Yes, let me first explain the title: “Half-Caste Woman” is actually the name of a song that was popular during Anna May Wong’s era. She sang the song in her vaudeville act all over Europe. To me, the song reveals how she thought of herself – she was Chinese and American, and people didn’t understand at the time how that was possible. She’s caught between these two worlds, as many people feel when they have multiple identities and it’s hard for others to grasp. I related to that because I am mixed, and I am technically a “half-caste” – that’s what people would call me if I lived a century ago.
The reason I surface these words is not to glorify them, but to recognize that these terms existed and were used pretty widely at one time. Yes, there’s a discomfort in hearing the term “half-caste” now, but sometimes we have to confront uncomfortable words to understand why they aren’t used anymore, and how they’re offensive.
KM: I really like that, it’s somewhat subversive. As was Anna May Wong.
KS: Her life is so frequently told as a tragedy, which I really hate, because I don’t think she would think of her own life that way. Her life was incredible!
Yes, bad things happened – there are small tragedies in every life, and she surely endured severe challenges because of her identity. But I think we have to put her travails, as well as her accomplishments, in perspective.
I want my book to convey how brilliant and charming she was. People really loved her.
Creative CAAre: Collective Artmaking for the AAPI Community
Tues, May 24 | 6-730 PM ET | Dumbo, Brooklyn (20 Jay Street)
You’re invited to a free *in-person* community art making session for The Cosmos Community in New York City. You’ll create a visual representation of the space and support system you need to feel rested, safe, and seen by the AAPI community. No art experience is required! We'll be coloring, and you'll get to take home your own box of crayons :)
This is our final event in Creative CAAre: Sustaining Your Mental Health & Artistic Practice, a series of free workshops centering Asian American creatives, artists, and cultural workers in Chinatown, Manhattan and Flushing, Queens in partnership with Asian American Arts Alliance. Our vision is to create a safe space to care for your creativity and your mental health, with the support of community care!
COVID Policy
You must wear a mask and be fully vaccinated to attend. A person is considered fully vaccinated 2 weeks after completion of a two-dose mRNA series or one dose of Janssen vaccine.
The workshop is FREE, though RSVP is required. If you have any accessibility needs for this workshop, please email lgold@aaartsalliance.org.