These days, everyone must have seen a lot of news about the portrait of Chinese American movie star Huang Liushuang will be engraved with American currency, making her the first Chinese to appear on American currency. So who is Huang Liushuang? What kind of life did she have? What does her landing in the U.S. currency mean?
Yellow willow cream
Anna May Wong is arguably Hollywood's first Chinese movie star, and this has a lot to do with her family's very unique background. Huang Liushuang's grandparents and maternal grandparents were both Chinese who arrived in the United States during the gold rush in 1855 AD, and her parents were both second-generation Chinese born in the United States, so although Huang Liushuang was born in 1905, she was already an extremely rare third-generation Chinese at that time.
We say that third-generation Chinese were extremely rare at that time because the United States introduced the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which prohibited all Chinese from immigrating to the United States. Therefore, after 1882 AD until World War II, the United States basically did not absorb any Chinese immigrants. However, this bill did not forcibly deport Chinese who had emigrated to the United States before it was passed, so Huang Liushuang's grandparents and parents remained in the United States, which also gave her an extremely rare identity in that era.
Huang Willow Frost's mother and Huang Willow Cream (baby in arms)
And when Huang Liushuang was 5 years old, her parents also moved their family to Figueroa Street in Los Angeles County, California, and this street is basically full of Mexicans and Eastern Europeans, only their family is Chinese, so Huang Liushuang has not had many opportunities to contact Chinese since she was a child, which also makes her integrate into American culture faster and more thoroughly.
In Huang Liushuang's childhood, the nascent film industry in the United States began to move from the east coast of the United States to the vicinity of Los Angeles, so scenes of filming can often be seen around the Huang family, which naturally makes Huang Liushuang interested in movies. Soon after, she began saving her own money to buy movie tickets and go to the cinema to see a movie.
A still of Huang Liushuang in the movie "Passing of the Sea"
In 1919, at the age of 14, Huang Liushuang had already begun to work in Hollywood, but at that time she was only working in the Paris City department store in Hollywood. But because she worked in Hollywood all day, she got a chance to appear in a movie soon after. At that time, a company called Metro Pictures invested in the production of a Chinese-themed film "The Red Lantern", which required 300 girls to be extras, and Huang Liushuang, who had always been interested in movies, played a little girl with a lantern under the introduction of an acquaintance, and began her film career.
In the next two years, Huang Liushuang ran tricks in many movies, which also made her more interested in movies. In 1921, she decided to drop out of secondary school and start acting full-time in film. That year, she got her first official role, playing a Chinese woman named "Li Baobao" in a movie called "Bits of Life."
Huang Willow Frost in "The Death of the Sea"
In 1922, Huang Liushuang played the leading role in Hollywood's first color film "The Toll of the Sea", and quickly became popular. After that, she starred in movies such as "The Thief of Baghdad", "Chinatown Bustling Dream" and "Shanghai Express", making her truly a "movie star" with considerable fame.
However, as we have just mentioned, until World War II, the United States was still in a period of Chinese exclusion, not only forbidding Chinese to enter the country, but also the vast majority of the very few Chinese who were already in the United States were also of low status and discriminated against. Therefore, as a Chinese, Huang Liushuang naturally could not play a good role, so although she was already famous at the time, the roles she played were still female slaves, dancers and prostitutes and other roles that would also be discriminated against. And in these movies, the image of the Chinese is extremely ugly, which has also caused a lot of controversy for Huang Liushuang.
For example, the 1932 movie "Shanghai Express", because of the plot of ugly Chinese, when it was released in Germany (there was basically no Chinese audience in the United States at that time), it caused strong dissatisfaction among Chinese students studying in Germany at that time. Because this call was so strong, the official film censorship committee in China at the time came forward to demand that Paramount Pictures, which made the film, recall the film within 10 days, otherwise it would ban its film from entering the Chinese market. Huang Liushuang, who played a role in it, was thus seen in China as an accomplice in helping Westerners humiliate China.
And because the Anti-Mixed Marriage Act existed in the United States at that time, which prohibited interracial couples in literary and artistic works, and there were basically no Asian actors in the American film industry at that time, Huang Liushuang, who was Chinese, basically could not get the opportunity to play the heroine, because she could not play opposite the white male lead. So at that time, her acting career quickly entered a bottleneck period, and she could not make further breakthroughs. And the Chinese images in American movies at that time were the same, all of which were ugly Chinese images, such as the naïve and self-dedicated "butterfly girl", the seductive and dangerous "dragon girl", or the daughter of bandits, these roles made Huang Liushuang annoying, but helpless. Later, in an interview with the media, she made it clear: "They only let me play those roles, I was really tired of it."
So Huang Liushuang also once went to Europe to try different roles in European movies. But although she got different roles in these European films, it also gave the media a lot of material to hype her lace news material, and at that time some media even hyped her gay affair with the famous movie star Marina Dietrich, which had a considerable impact on her reputation in the social environment at that time.
In 1935, the American female writer Pearl Buck, who grew up in China, was about to be adapted into a movie with a Chinese rural theme novel "The Earth", according to which Huang Liushuang was definitely the best candidate to play the heroine in the American film industry at that time, but because of the deep-rooted discrimination against the Chinese in American society at that time, Huang Liushuang was not selected in the end and did not have the opportunity to star in the very successful movie "The Earth".
After that, disheartened, Huang Liushuang decided to go to China in January 1936. She arrived in Shanghai during the first lunar month and then traveled to Taishan, Guangdong, to visit her father and younger siblings, who had returned to their ancestral homeland. But because many people in China were still dissatisfied with her performance in American movies at that time, she could not even enter her father's house in Taishan. After that, Huang Liushuang made stops in Shanghai and Beiping, during which she had many gatherings with Hu Die, the queen of domestic film, and studied Peking opera with Peking opera master Mei Lanfang.
After the outbreak of China's all-out war of resistance in 1937, the American anti-Chinese atmosphere that needed China to contain Japan was gradually reversed, so some American film companies also shot some low-cost films that portrayed Chinese image positively, and Huang Liushuang naturally became the protagonist in it, starring in films such as "Shanghai Daughter" and "Chongqing Heroic Martyrs" that portrayed Chinese people positively. During this period, Huang Liushuang sold his costumes and donated the proceeds to some non-governmental organizations in the United States that supported China's war of resistance, along with his salary in some films. In 1942, she also published a Chinese cookbook in the United States and donated all royalties to matters related to the Anti-Japanese War. In addition, during this period, she also participated in many activities related to supporting the Anti-Japanese War and raising funds for the Anti-Japanese War.
After World War II, Huang Liushuang appeared in many movies and starred in a series tailored specifically for her, "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong". But these movies and series have a small impact, so Huang Liushuang's financial situation seems to be more difficult during this period, which also led to a gradual deterioration of her health. In 1952, as a supporter of the Democratic Party of the United States, Huang Liushuang also helped Adlai Stevenson, who represented the Democratic Party in the election of President of the United States. In 1960, Huang Liushuang also became one of the first Hollywood stars to be selected for the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he had a star medal engraved with his name on the Walk of Fame, becoming the first Asian movie star to receive this honor. But just a year later, she died of a heart attack on March 1, 1961, at the age of 56.
Throughout Huang Liushuang's life, it can be said that she is indeed a Hollywood actor with a unique status, and is the first Chinese filmmaker with a certain international reputation. However, although Huang Liushuang has a Chinese identity, and this Chinese identity has a great impact on her exclusion in her acting career and later an important historical position, she is still a 100% American actress, and the Chinese images she created in her acting career, whether positive or negative, can be said to be determined by the popular fashion of American society, so they are actually out-and-out American cultural symbols.
So finally, let's briefly talk about the American 25-cent coin that will be engraved with the portrait of Huang Liushuang this time. Huang Willow Frost's portrait will be engraved on the back of the 25-cent coin, which since 1932 has featured portraits of Washington, the first president of the United States. Before 1998, there was only one 25-cent back pattern, an eagle standing on a bundle of arrows.
But starting in 1999, the United States issued several series of 25-cent coins in the form of commemorative coins. The first of these series is the 50 States series, which still features a Washington head on the front and iconic motifs of each state on the back, such as well-known historical figures, landmarks and specialties. Since then, non-state U.S. territories such as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have also been included in the plan. So after that, there are dozens of patterns on the back of 25 cents.
Upcoming yellow willow frost portrait coin
This year, the United States launched the American Women's Collection 25 Cent Coins, which plans to issue 20 reverse designs, that is, 20 different female portraits will be engraved. The first batch of 5 women has been identified, which are well-known women from African-American, LGBT, Native American, Hispanic and Asian descent in American history, and the Asian one is Huang Liushuang, and the coin engraved with Huang Liushuang's portrait will be officially released on October 25, 2022. (Image from the Internet)