Long before Everything Everywhere All at Once propelled leading Asian stars into the Oscar realm, movies typically featured Asian and Asian American actors in lesser, sidekick or ancillary roles. But the 2022 film sensation put Asian performers front and center, and the world outside Hollywood took notice. At the same time, Yunte Huang was busy writing the third book in his Rendezvous with America trilogy about Asian American popular figures, this one on Anna May Wong, who is considered the first Chinese American actress to appear in film. (The other two subjects were Charlie Chan, the fictional detective, and Chang and Eng Bunker, also known as the Siamese Twins.)

DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, a retelling of Wong’s life, is deeply steeped in research. Huang sets the stage for America’s burgeoning interest in all things Asian in film history. As early as 1898, the movie Chinese Procession was created by James H. White --- one of the pioneers of early cinema --- using Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope.

"One can’t help but wonder what Wong would have thought of the 2022 Oscars and how far we have come --- or haven’t come --- in cinema."

Huang describes in much detail the America of the early 1900s, the era in which Wong Liu Tsong, Anna May’s birth name, was born in Los Angeles. Anti-Asian hatred was rampant, and it was not unheard of in the Chinese community for Asians to arm themselves with whistles to sound an alarm if an attack seemed imminent. The Chinese Exclusion Act, which was passed in 1882 and stayed in effect until 1943, prevented the Chinese from immigrating to the United States.

Wong’s father was an established laundryman on the outskirts of LA’s Chinatown. Wong grew up in the laundromat, delivering cleaned clothes to those who could afford the service. She liked the picture shows and saw herself up on the screen long before it happened. In fact, what she saw most frequently were white actors in “yellow face,” in a Hollywood caught up with the exotic “Orientals.” Her neighborhood was often used as a substitute for China, and she spent hours hanging around sets and watching movies being made.

A somewhat controversial figure, Wong played into the stereotypical roles that Hollywood offered her at first, precisely because that’s what was available. Many faulted her for embodying the characters that limited the roles offered to other Asians, but at the same time she is seen as breaking down walls that could have kept them from working at all. Few true roles for Asian actors existed, yet Wong’s career spanned silent films to early television and earned parts opposite Marlene Dietrich and Lawrence Olivier. In one of the biggest productions of a Chinese story, The Good Earth, Wong --- at this time a well-known and respected actor in film circles --- refused to take a smaller role and stand beside white actors embodying Chinese characters.

Huang delves a bit into Wong’s life off the screen, including romances with some of Hollywood’s elite, and nods at the possibility that she was open to relationships with both genders. But he doesn’t trivialize her place in cinematic history with gossip and innuendo. He does portray a human being who fought for work and eventually felt that she earned the right not to settle for less. The book’s title is no accident or coincidence; it comes from one of Wong’s most exaggerated roles, playing the over-the-top daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu in the 1931 movie Daughter of the Dragon. She took the part because she felt that an Asian should play an Asian character.

One can’t help but wonder what Wong would have thought of the 2022 Oscars and how far we have come --- or haven’t come --- in cinema.