The year or so I was born a girl died
who through her long career
made the world less unbearable for everyone.
She fought race barriers
when such a fight was unthinkable
and her family, at least half of them,
to this day, is still ashamed of her.
What do you know about the struggle for rights
of working Chinese women?
She was the lethargic China doll
with drooping cigarette
on the Shanghai train
with true grit/mad-dog Dietrich;
a dragon lady of L.A. flophouse fame
poster girl from Madrid to Paris
a winged lioness who flew
from the court of Chang Kai Shek
to the green card klan of Charlie Chan.
Hollywood built a great wall of China
while the world was raining galoshes of war
and kept her out.
She had friends.
She met Paul Robeson in London
and must have poured him a glass of wine
saying “I can’t imagine the pain that you’re in
but it must be something like mine.”
She was color-barred out of her rightful place
as a mainstream movie star
called a symptom as often as a symbol
by those of her own ashamed of the roles
she had to grab
with the smile of a fortune cookie.
You know what the big word that went around is:
Opprobrium
and the consequence:
a bottomless glass of gin from the hand of Mephistopheles.
She faced all the bravura,
mayhem and machismo
with a dry, philosophical grace.
But some still said there was something wrong
with Anna May Wong.
—Mac Crary