The Fortunes

Anna May Wong, born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905, became the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. She began her career during the silent film era and eventually reached international stardom. Like her fictional representation in The Fortunes, Anna was born in Los Angeles to Chinese American immigrants and became fascinated by film as a young girl. Her first role was as an extra in the film The Red Lantern in 1919, and within a few years she had become an internationally recognized face as well as a fashion icon and supporter of Chinese Americans in Los Angeles. Although Anna was popular and successful, her career began during an era when interracial relationships, onscreen and off, were seen as taboo and representation for people of color was limited. Even when scripts called for Asian characters, Wong was often passed over in favor of white actresses who donned makeup to appear Asian, a practice called “yellowface.” The most notable of these snubs was for the role of Olan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck’s prizewinning novel (set in China) The Good Earth. Anna went on to star in a series of films and television shows, and although she was renowned as the first Chinese American film star, she never achieved the level of stardom that white actresses did during her day. Still, she remains an important part of the history of Chinese Americans in the United States and marks an early instance of minority representation in the film industry.

Vincent Chin was a Chinese American man murdered because he was mistaken for Japanese by two white auto workers in June of 1982. His story in The Fortunes is relatively close to Chin’s real-life killing. Chin was celebrating his bachelor party at a strip club in Highland Park, Michigan, and was targeted by two white men employed at the local Chrysler plant, Ronald Ebens and his recently laid off stepson Michael Nitz. At the time, the United States was experiencing an economic recession, and the decline of the American auto industry was widely blamed on the success of Japanese automotive companies. There was widespread fear and panic that American jobs were at risk because of Japanese car companies, and anti-Japanese sentiment increased due to this fear of economic competition. Since it was not unusual for white Americans to fail to distinguish between Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or other Asian immigrant groups, the rising anti-Japanese sentiment led to a rise in attacks against even Asian Americans who were not Japanese. Ebens and Nitz were initially charged with second-degree murder, but they accepted a plea deal that reduced the charges to manslaughter. They were sentenced only to three years of probation and were each ordered to pay a fine. While the judge tried to cite their lack of criminal records as reason for the light sentencing, it was obvious to many that a combination of their whiteness and rampant anti-Asian sentiment at the time were responsible. A public outcry against the verdict led to an activism campaign and in 1984 the two men were charged with a hate crime in federal court. Ebens was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but Nitz was acquitted. Ebens’s conviction was overturned in 1986. At subsequent re-trial he was acquitted on all charges.