Who is Anna May Wong, the first Asian American on a U.S. coin, bill?

The United States has minted the first piece of U.S. currency to feature the likeness of an Asian American, the U.S. Mint announced Monday.

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A quarter with the likeness of actress Anna May Wong began shipping this week. According to the Mint, the tails side of the coin has Wong’s likeness with her chin resting in her hand.

It is the fifth coin in a series that feature prominent American women.

Who was Wong? Here are 10 things we know about the woman who refused to be portrayed the way Hollywood wanted her to be seen.

1. She was born Wong Liu Tsong.

2. Her first major success came in 1924 when she played a Mongol slave in the classic film “The Thief of Bagdad” with Douglas Fairbanks.

3. Wong was considered Hollywood’s first Asian American movie star.

4. She was often cast in stereotypical Asian roles.

5. She lost several Asian roles to white actresses under a practice called “yellowface” – where actresses were heavily made up in an attempt to look Asian.

6. She fought to get lead roles in a time when anti-miscegenation laws (laws against interracial relationships) discouraged moviemakers from portraying such relationships on film.

7. She moved to Europe to work after enduring years of unequal pay and being offered only minor roles.

8. She made 60 movies during her career.

9. In 1933, she told a magazine, “Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain of the piece, and so cruel a villain — murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass,” she told the newspaper. “We are not like that.”

10. When she died in 1961 of a heart attack at age 56, her obituary in Time magazine dubbed her “the screen’s foremost Oriental villainess.”

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