Despite having been featured on a U.S. quarter and as a Barbie in Mattel's Inspiring Women series among luminaries such as Rosa Parks and Helen Keller, the actress Anna May Wong is arguably lesser known. Shirley Jennifer Lim seeks to rectify that with the fascinating Anna May Wong: An Intimate Portrait.
Born in California in 1905, Wong was a U.S. citizen who lived under the Chinese Exclusion Act. After starting as a background actor, she went on to bigger roles in silent films, then "talkies" and on Broadway. She eventually enjoyed a glamorous life among society's uppermost tiers, shattering norms of what an "Oriental" woman could achieve at the time. Anna May Wong is meticulously researched, filled with rarely seen photos, and features quotes from Wong's eloquent personal letters. Readers get a glimpse of her optimism despite racist Hollywood casting practices--e.g. yellowface--and her resilience in constantly reinventing herself for changing times. Ironically, her remarkable life would provide grand source material for the kind of Hollywood movies in which she was denied starring roles. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, freelance editor at The Edit Ninja