 Good evening. Please welcome City Librarian Michael Lambert. Wow, what a crowd! Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the San Francisco Public Library Caret Auditorium. I'm Michael Lambert. I'm your City Librarian. And I want everyone to leave with a big stack of books tonight, okay? Can you help me out? I am so delighted you're all here. Your San Francisco Public Library is proud to foster shared experiences for our community to engage in civic affairs such as today. And I'd like to thank each and every one of you for coming out to be a part of this exciting moment. We have so many incredible leaders and attendants this evening. Our Sheriff Miyamoto was here earlier today. His Chief of Staff Rich is up here in the front row. Our Department Head from the Department of Environment in San Francisco, Tyrone Ju, is back here. I saw Hagen Choi, our Chairman of the Soul Sister City Committee, and our City Administrator, Carmen Chu, who we'll hear from shortly. Yes. You know, it was just earlier this year in March that our very own Western Edition Branch Library was the site of the launch of the very first quarter in the American Women's Quarter Program Series, featuring the famed writer, poet, and social activist Maya Angelou. Former U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios, former Mayor Willie Brown, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi were in attendance to witness the historic event. And today, we are so thrilled to once again host the United States Mint to launch another quarter, featuring the talented trailblazing actress Anna May Wong, who was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. The library is so proud to partner with U.S. Mint and our local partners, The Center for Asian American Media, and APA Heritage Foundation to host the screening of the Anna May Wong documentary and the panel discussion to follow. I want to thank Stephen Gong, Director of CAM. He's right here in the front row. Thank you, Stephen, for your ongoing partnership and leadership to present stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences. And of course, I want to acknowledge a phenomenal woman who needs no introduction in this town, Claudine Ching, President of the APA Heritage Foundation. Claudine is the driving force behind so many efforts to celebrate the culture and heritage of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in San Francisco, as well as efforts to foster cross-cultural exchange and awareness among all the diverse communities in San Francisco. We owe her so much gratitude. Please join me in welcoming Claudine Ching. Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. I take a moment to gather my thoughts. I can't believe it's kind of surreal that we are here celebrating the launching of a coin with an Asian American on its base. I think it's kind of surreal. Many of you were around when 30 years ago, exactly, when we celebrated the issue of the first postage stamps, postal stamps, honoring Chinese and Asian Americans in this country, our Lunar New Year stamps, 30 years ago. And at that time, some of us sitting around and thinking, what else can we do? What about on the currency, on the coin? But the idea at that time feels so far-fetched. We kind of dropped it, because we simply do not know how to get about doing that. And here we are today, and it's amazing. It's a significant chapter in our history. Many of you have generously or this week, over the course of this week, have congratulated me and to clarify. I wish that I said I have something to do with it, but I have nothing to do with bringing about this coin. But I do feel very passionate, like all of you that take the time to be here that we should celebrate this very significant chapter in our community. This morning, it's all about education, as I understand from my new friends from the United States Mint. This morning, I had the opportunity to go with John Chu, who is the blind chief and education chief of the U.S. Mint, to visit a fourth grade class at Gordon J. Low School. Thank you, John. And it was very exciting, because John was going to explain to them how the coin was made, what is the coin, and start collecting coins, and the history of all of that. And so I asked him to just break the ice. I said, okay, who has heard about Anna May Wong? I am surprised that so many kids raised their hands. And they said, oh, she's the first Asian based on the coin. And one said, oh, you know, she grew up in Chinatown. And the one that I'm most impressed about, the little boy, she fought discrimination. I said, wow. I mean, those kids were prepared. If that's our fourth grade class, I think we have a lot of hope. It's really amazing. And I must say that I understand that the coin is really also a true of education. The coin is to celebrate American women whose achievement have been under-recognized, that they have done a lot for the country, and yet, you know, maybe not a lot of people know about them. And Anna May Wong was one of those. I must say I just learned so much about her these last two weeks. I mean, it's amazing. And then I said, hmm. And looking around this room, I know all the women here, Benz, and all the women here. I mean, this is what the coin program is about. It's about really celebrating, you know, the achievement of American women, which we are all a part of, and it's really about time. I want to thank Michelle Thompson from the United States Mint who will hear from later because this is her vision that really drives this at the United States Mint. We all know how difficult it is to drive through a piece of legislation through Congress and make this actually happen. Thank you, Michelle. So here we are, and I certainly hope that this is a four-year program. This is the first year, and Anna May Wong was the last coin of this cycle. But I look forward to seeing in the future, in the next three years, certainly look forward to celebrating. I believe that there is a coin coming on, celebrating also our Pacific Islanders. So we are very excited about future announcements. And, you know, it's all about also telling the stories and inspiring our younger generation about little kids and they can look up to and say, hey, there's Anna May Wong. I can be there, too, because in her time, she was never able to play a major role in the movies. She was always either in the silent movies or she was, you know, really playing a minor part. So, but looking around, I think that, but they're all inspirations. And looking around the room, I do feel a lot of energy because I know many of you out there have done so much for our city, for our community. And the next speaker that I'm going to introduce is one such inspiring person to me. Our city administrator, Carmen Chu, has over 17 years of experience in public service. She's really have dedicated her life to our city from being in the mayor's office to being elected to the board of supervisors to be our assessor. And now our city administrator, and she's so busy and she's a mother, but of a young mother and she had to go home and balance all of that. It's really amazing. Let's welcome Carmen Chu. Good evening, everybody. I'm Carmen Chu. I serve as a San Francisco city administrator and I'm so honored and proud to be here with you all today. I want to, before I say a few words, I just want to thank, of course, our city librarian for continuing to honor the tradition of public education through your facilities. It's not just about the act of borrowing books and educating yourself through that channel, but the library has truly been a place where they open up their facilities to make sure that all kinds of information, any kind of public education and awareness that they can do to help educate our residents is done through our public learning libraries. And so I just want to say thank you to him because he continues to push that and I think that's an amazing thing for our city's library system to do. Thank you to Claudine who, of course, people know and know how hard she works. At every opportunity she takes the time to uplift the voices and experiences and stories of the API community and I think that's incredibly important, especially at this time when we see so much anti-Asian hate. And this is something that we deal with on an ongoing basis when I was a young girl and today whenever the tides turn, the economy turns, issues arise, we find ourselves sometimes the perpetual foreigner, no matter how long we've been here or how long our communities and our families have been here. So I want to thank her for continuing to raise the stories and awareness because it's so important and not everybody does it. So thank you, Claudine. Let's give her a big round of applause. And of course to Stephen with CAM for all the work that they do to uplift the APA voice. I think it's really important, especially in an underrepresented field. So thank you very much for all the work you do. So I'll really just keep my comments short. I think I'm just really pleased and honored to be here. I think Claudine mentioned I'm a young mother. My daughter is three and a half years old. She is a handful. I had no idea what I was in store for. You give me city administrator, assessor, board of supervisors, no problem. But my child, oh my goodness, I am a pushover. But what I want for her more than anything in the world is for her to have every opportunity that is possible. And I think that many people in this room can identify with that because whether it is you with your own families or your parents who came before you here, the point was always to create a better life for all of us so that my daughter doesn't have to limit herself to say that it's not possible to say that she's going to be discriminated against or that she's not going to have the same opportunities as others or that her voice won't be heard. And so my hope for my daughter is that she will see more of people who look like her in positions of power, in media, in news, in governance, in politics, everywhere in arts so that she can reach for the stars and she will never be limited in the same way that so many of our families and our generations have been limited. Maybe that's a pipe dream, but I think it's a pipe dream that's worth going after and I want to thank the U.S. Mint for helping to tell the stories of our Asian-American community because it is really important to see our faces everywhere. My daughter has come to really enjoy playing make-believe with me and one of the things she likes to do is make me buy things that are in her room and we're playing with money and paper money but I'm really going to be proud to be able to hand her some quarters and money to play with that's actually going to look like her and I think that's going to be a really great thing to be able to say is that we're not an afterthought, we are part of the American history here. So I want to thank again the U.S. Mint for recognizing this and I hope that there will be more opportunities and more stories and more people we uplift through this process. So thank you very much. I have certificates of honor here that I'm going to leave behind to share with you but I did want to make sure to, without further ado, introduce Michelle Thompson with the U.S. Mint. She's going to tell you a little bit more about the program that brought us the Anna Mae Wong quarter and I'm delighted to introduce her because she came all the way from Washington D.C. to come join us today. So it's a big deal that she's here with us to commemorate this wonderful day. She is the program lead for the American Women Quarters Program at the U.S. Mint. It's a four-year program to honor the accomplishments and contributions of diverse U.S. women that includes also Maya Angelou and astronaut Sally Wright. So quite a lot of women that I think we should be recognizing over time and I'm really glad for this program. So Michelle, thank you for making history happen and why don't you come on up. All right. Hello everyone. Good evening. It is really my pleasure to be here and to join so many distinguished and passionate people to celebrate the release of the Anna Mae Wong quarter with this very special event. Recognizing and honoring women on our nation's currency matters. Our coins tell the American story. They reflect what we value as a nation and we value women because women matter. For the first time in history, the United States Mint is issuing circulating quarters through a coin program that is solely dedicated to honoring American women. Beginning in 2022, this year is year one and running through 2025, five different women will be honored annually on the reverse. That's just the tail side of the quarters. This diverse group of women that we are honoring truly reflect a wide range of accomplishments and fields. The honorees have helped to shape our nation's history and their contributions span the centuries from the birth of the nation to modern day. At the Mint, we see the work we do as connecting America through coins. It is our distinct pleasure to connect Americans to Anna Mae Wong who left a lasting legacy for Asian American women in the entertainment industry. With a career spanning motion pictures, television and theater, she faced persistent discrimination in Hollywood. That fourth grade boy was right when he said that, but she continually championed the need for increased representation and more multi-dimensional roles for Asian American actors. Many people consider the coins that the U.S. Mint produces to be miniature pieces of art. Our very talented pull of artists continually amazed in how they could express the values, aspirations and shared heritage of a nation, all on a canvas the size of a quarter. This coin's design truly exemplifies the strength and determination it took for Anna Mae Wong to become the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. It was designed by United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program artist Emily Damstra and it was sculpted by U.S. Mint medallic artist John McGraw. The reverse side of the quarter, the tail side, features a close-up image of Anna Mae Wong with her head resting on her perfectly manicured hand. And even in this quarter, she is truly captivating. I think that's something, when you watch her films, when you see her photographs, you can't help but notice this woman. And now millions, hundreds of millions of people will be able to notice her too. She is surrounded by the bright lights of a marquee sign, which you saw a lot of in 1920s and 1930s Hollywood. And the inscriptions include United States of America, Anna Mae Wong, Quarter Dollar, and E Pluribus Unum. Unifying the entire coin program, all 20 coins of the program, is a new obverse or head side. Now it still has George Washington on it, but this was designed by one of the most iconic female sculptors of the early 20th century, Laura Garden Frazier. So in that respect, we're really honoring 21 women with this program. These pioneering women of the American Women Quarters Program represent vastly different fields of endeavor, talents, and skills. Yet they all share a singular commonality. Their contributions were groundbreaking. They had a lasting impact on society. And none of these women would ever settle or accept the status quo. All of our 2022 honorees influenced others and paved the way for each new generation. We hope their stories inspire you and connect you to the history we all share. At this time, I'd love to call up Ms. Claudine Chang to the stage. So Ms. Chang, on behalf of the United Statesmen, I would love to present to you two American Women Quarters, one from each of our production facilities who are making the quarters in Philadelphia and in Denver, to the Asian Pacific American Heritage Foundation. Thank you so much for your dedication in promoting this and providing... and just the fact that the community can get together like this and celebrate Anna May Wong is spectacular. So I don't want you to feel that you're left out. We brought a little something for all of you as well. As you exit the event tonight. As you exit the event, you will each receive an Anna May Wong quarter and it's going to be in a commemorative coin board. It has spots. These are a hot commodity, guys. These are pretty cool. It has a spot for the four other women too and I really hope that you are inspired to find the other four honorees and add them to your collection as well. So it is my pleasure to introduce Stephen Gong. Stephen is the executive director of the Center for Asian American Media and has served in this role since 2006. He was previously the deputy director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California Berkeley and associate director at the National Center for Film and Video Preservation in the American Film Institution. Without further ado, please welcome Mr. Stephen Gong. You've been all been so patient and now we know we'll be rewarded. This is so exciting. I just want to say thank you to Michael Lambert. He read the mission statement for CAM so well. I don't have to do that. Many of you know that we hold an annual film festival called CAM Fest and in fact our emeritus festival director, the beloved Masashi Nihwana was right here in the audience. And I bring that up also because the film we're going to see tonight right now as soon as I can get off this stage and you can get me out of the way. A documentary film that we showed at our festival in 2011. It's called Anime Wong in her own words. It was directed by Yuna Hong who is an award-winning filmmaker in New York and unfortunately Yuna could not be here with us tonight but I did want to say on her behalf this is a really wonderful, her background is in experimental forms of media and she did work in video and she produced about eight other films up till now and all of them pretty much have to do with the achievement of Asian American women. So this is her first feature length project. It's one hour and it was also broadcast on public television and I think what the essence of this film is it relates very much to some of the remarks we've heard tonight. Anime Wong's career was terribly prescribed and limited because of the racial codes and because of the prevailing decision-making in the entertainment industry and the fact that she broke in so early during the silent period. And even though she is a pioneer not only in motion pictures but also in television she had one of the very first television series but definitely as you will see she didn't have the kind of career that any of us would want for the creative parts of our community and so what Yuna was wanting to do was using her own words based on letters, correspondence and remarks in interviews she wanted to piece together what the real Anime Wong was about because you won't necessarily find it by looking just at film clips of the film she was in. I don't want to say too much more. We can get into this. We have some very special guests for a conversation afterwards both about this remarkable unveiling of putting a member of our creative community on our currency and we've also got some wonderful examples of how far we've come what the distance is now when women can truly be recognized as creative equals in the entertainment industry we still have a ways to go but I think that what we're feeling is this sense of excitement and possibility once again to create stories that represent truly the diversity of our country. So without further ado I hope you enjoy the film and in the Q&A part of the conversation we'd love to hear from you so you can be thinking of questions you might have based on the film you're seeing and the wonderful introduction we've had about how representation matters. Okay, thanks a lot. Wasn't that a treat? Very good. Okay, it'll just take us a couple of minutes to get our special guests here. Maybe I will pipe them on stage now and introduce them. Well you've met Michelle Thompson the program lead for the American Women's Quarters Program at the U.S. Mint and now this is a special treat for me one of the rare privileges I get is to introduce Joan Chen the renowned, the many times honored Asian-American actress and film director. Joan grew up in Shanghai and was a movie star in China even before she came to the United States. You may know her best from Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor also Twin Peaks the series and we at CAM honored Joan in 2012 at our 30th festival and by showing three of her films it was the premiere of White Frog and we also showed Saving Face which was a wonderful film and of course the film that she directed Shu Shu the Sent Down Girl. Please welcome Joan Chen. Very good. And now to round out the conversation we're going to have and it's my great pleasure to welcome Christa Marie Yu an Asian-American actor who grew up nearby in Lafayette, California she's best known for her roles on television she played the main role of Molly Park on the sitcom Doctor Ken the role of Jen on Last Man Standing and she now has a featured role of Elaine Kim on the Hulu series Reboot please welcome Christa Marie Yu change venue thank you very much you know what we're going to start with a little bit oh yeah thank you we're going to start by connecting it you know back to this incredible occasion of the US Mint and this special program that honors the achievement of American women and you know what we've said is just so remarkable that we feel in yet another milestone in a big way that we're seeing and that we have a place here so I want to start Michelle a little bit fill us in a little bit of how this happened how it came about how you all came to choose anime what was that process like absolutely well back in 2019 we were nearing the end of a 12 year quarter program the America the beautiful quarters program and we needed to come up with something that would replace this for circulating quarters the circulating quarter is the workhouse like the workhorse of our currency of our coins producing hundreds of millions of quarters annually right now we're on almost 2 billion over 2 billion for the American women quarters program this year alone so we started doing some market research and determining what America wanted to see reflected in their currency we learned first off that a 12 year program was entirely too long people didn't want to look for quarters I had a father who said to me I started collecting coins with my daughter as a 7 year old and by the end she was a 19 year old and she just wasn't excited anymore and he ended up filling up all the books of the coins by himself so we wanted to get something that resonated and something we kept hearing about in research was honoring women and American women now the Mint just can't go out and change our circulating quarters and our coins we need this to become law in order for us to do this so legislation was drafted and we found some phenomenal bipartisan support in Congress we had Senator Cortez Mesto we had Senator Deb Fischer your own representative Barbara Lee from California as well as representative Gonzalez from Ohio so people really came together in support of this bill which did become law it became the circulating collectible coin redesign act of 2020 and just passed in January of 2021 so then the fun began because it's one thing to envision this law but then you sit back and you think oh my goodness we have this amazing historic groundbreaking program coming up and how do we start how do we choose these 20 women because I think if we were to talk to everyone in this audience today and say give me your list of 20 women that you would honor for this program everyone's lists would be different but in reality the stories of women hasn't been told before on currency we had Sacajawea on the golden dollar we had Susan B. Anthony but we've never really looked at accomplishments of women and did a whole program focusing on that so the law requires us to consult with three different groups we have the National Women's History Museum the Smithsonian Institution's American Women's History Initiative and the Bipartisan Women's Caucus they all had some ideas and recommendations on who they would like to honor based upon all women who are honored have to be deceased that is just the law for coins but making sure they were underrepresented well because we did have some people who call in and they would say my mom is fantastic I'm sure she is I'm sure she's wonderful but we also sought public opinion as well and we received over 11,000 submissions through a web portal that the National Women's History Museum held for us so you take all this information and then you have to start going through and identifying who these women could be because we wanted to make sure when you looked at this program that a little girl or a little boy can turn the quarter over and say this is someone who looks like me or this is someone who is interested in something that I'm passionate about and it's extremely inspirational so we make these recommendations of the five women and then they are passed on to Secretary Yellen the Secretary of the Treasury and ultimately she makes the final decision on who these five women are it's all in her hands fascinating well I think we do understand why being deceased is a prerequisite otherwise I would have nominated John Chen so John and it'll happen one day I'll be deceased is what I mean so we'll hold Michelle we'll get back to the phenomenon of the quarters program and I'll have a follow up for you all I wanted to turn it to the special program that we have and as you've gone around with the other quarters this is a rather unusual thing in a way to try to show a documentary about the subject and have some exemplars some role models that we're so proud of in our community that we have these achievements so I did want to turn to this and ask you first Joan and then Krista if you would follow up too and think about this you know one of the things that we think about or I think about when I think of Anna Mae Wong she truly was you know tried to straddle this cultural divide of being Chinese and being American at the same time and there were some conflicts by the tremendous freedom that she had to make the most of her life which I think is a human condition but I do think culturally with her family it was a real challenge as we saw in the documentary our father didn't quite understand motion pictures they were just getting started I wonder in your own journey and Joan you might need to fill the audience about your own journey but you coming to this country at a fairly young age and yet you had been picked out for you know for film acting in China even what was your family supportive of your journey my situation was very different because I grew up during the cultural revolution and we didn't get to choose our professions so you don't aspire to anything you aspire to be the best keg in the mechanism of socialism so that was that and but I was picked out of school at age 14 like she that's how I started I just got picked out of school on a rifle team and they needed a girl to play the gorilla girl so there was so for me acting was apprenticeship and somewhat like what she did we learned on the jobs and it's been fantastic I can't complain and when you came to the United States was it still your ambition how did you follow through then when you kind of came here it really wasn't my ambition at all I was assigned actually to star after my first small part that I was chosen for the movie then stopped because the producer was Mao's wife and she got arrested and they stopped and somehow one of very influential Chinese actress started an acting school and she said well you know if you're interested just come to my school and I was so happy I didn't have to go back to high school and so that's I picked up acting there but it wasn't really a dream or anything it was good that I didn't have to be set down to the remote region and do you know physical heart labor so that was good I think I didn't become really passionate about acting until later like I starred in four movies I came here and I was 20 when I came here and I think when I was 22 when they made Zhang Long Michael Cimino Oh was it were you in Year of the Dragon Year of the Dragon okay so finally I heard of a script that's gonna have like a leading Chinese character I was 22 speaking terrible English and she's a newscaster and I'm like okay I'm gonna learn English and I tried so hard I worked in the restaurant $5 an hour as a cashier and the dialect coach is like dialogue coach like 200 bucks for two hours a session I was like okay I'm gonna have it now I want this part back to like so many callbacks months of it I mean looking back I was wrong I would never have but they the casting director somehow kept me there and it gave me hope and that was my biggest heartbreak ever it was never had an audition that broke my heart as that one and I realized that it's a profession where your hard work and result really do not correlate you know but that became a challenge and I think that's when I started to become more passionate because I was tested I was tested yeah I hadn't heard that stroke before thank you for sharing that and it was year of the dragon which is really a terrible thing I know it wasn't the best portrayal but so rare that you read there is a Chinese lead yeah oh my goodness okay we're gonna get back to that but now it's Christa's and I wanted to set this up right because a lot of us in the community know Christa know your parents Alan and Margo who are right here in the front row and I think one of the themes that we've been talking about then is families and what we want for our children and how grateful we are that our families came to this country so many of them with that belief that here there was this kind of freedom to pursue your dreams and yet a parent's probably greatest wish is to protect their children at the same time and I know you're a parent now too John but Christa on that it's a little bit about your own decision to enter this arduous profession and the kind of conversations you might have had with your parents about this yes I will say that I am incredibly lucky for the parents that I have they have modeled how important community within our Asian-American specifically within our Asian-American families is the more we can work together to have our voices heard in a way that we are important and just as much as whoever else is on any kind of American currency so every little step of the way whether it's like an onlook fashion show or you know my dad like donating to school or gosh square and circle club my grandma is actually she has also been somebody who is a trailblazer for those of you who don't know she was the first Asian-American or Chinese-American public school teacher of San Francisco so my roots and my pride run very deep when seeing when seeing John Chen hearing about John Chen and all the hard work that you've done and then just recently seeing you in Tiger Tail too like it makes sense why you were picked out of so many people and prevailed in Asia but here that scene in Tiger Tail everybody has to see it it was riveting how grounded you are and how you've grown over time like you said you started so young that that's not something you would expect from a woman even in the entertainment industry there's so much media assumptions via media like that we saw in this documentary too that you're expected to play a certain type for so long so to watch you grow with your characters is something that's truly inspiring to me and that definitely takes hard work and yeah I think I may have gone on a tangent but it all starts from people like my parents who have made me believe that I can do it and we see people like Anna May Wong who do it and then you believe you can do it too that's fabulous I want to stop it I feel like we've kind of done it I think we've said all that way no no I'm not going to stop there let's stay on something important about well actually Christa what I want to ask you first is what was your worst audition experience my worst audition experience my heart gets broken a lot rejection I mean as hard as it was for Anna May Wong it's still incredibly difficult there have been many times where I've been told I don't look right or they're not looking for my type which basically means they're not looking for your race you're not this you're not that you're not this specifically one really I don't know if it was a bad audition but I also poured my heart into it and they didn't know how to place me and they said well instead of just this one part why don't you learn all three and this song and this dance all in one day so this one scene I had to learn all three different parts I was also a bridesmaid for my cousin the next day so I I poured my heart into all three parts memorizing it and then I got a call and they said oh actually we decided you're not even going to I got to the end to the very very end and it's called a test and they said well we decided actually we're not going to have a test so I was rejected even before I got to that part so I would say I get rejected 99% of the time I look in the mirror every day and cry I'm kidding again it's people like my parents who continue to support me or people like again John or Tamla and Tamida we saw her up there and we know that the passion is there and when you see people who do it for the right reasons versus for fame or money they're really doing it because they love it like Anna May Wong she did it because she loved it and there was no other option to them nothing is going to keep me down no one's going to tell me otherwise she even had some kind of illness and prevailed anyway and I think that kind of mentality is what gets us through I mean my mom has always said be ten times better than the average and I hope there'll be one day where we don't have to feel that like I do feel like when I'm at work there's no rule for mistakes whereas maybe for some other people there are so I hope that the understanding of that is important ally shit thinking Michelle just continues so we lift each other and allow space for all of us to grow and make the mistakes and realize that those mistakes actually bring us to a better future thank you so much and yeah John I would love for you to thank you and John you've mentored so many of the actresses that you've worked with we know that's on saving face I wonder if you would talk a little bit about that kind of bond that you have developed over the years yeah saving face was one film that we really still together I think we came back for the 20th anniversary and so you do find people who inspire you who are passionate and really good at what they do and support each other but I have to say that it is a tough business for any race for any race at all so everybody, every race gets rejected many many times over and that's just the nature of the beast and that's the gamble that you take I think you just need to be you just need to be obsessed and you can't live without it I mean if you can live without it then don't do it don't do it and that's just that's how I feel I mean I'm sure you know I feel for you when you talk about the rejections I mean in my younger days it's like every time if they said no it's a blow it's not a rejection of your resume it's a rejection of you your entire being heart and soul and everything and your looks and your pimples and everything and so it is extremely difficult but so wonderful, so exhilarating once in a huge once in a big while you get that one scene and that just makes it all worthwhile and you live for that one scene and that is good enough and it's impactful to people like me who get to see you do it but even if you're not an actress you see yourself reflected on screen and you understand or you see yourself on a quarter and you're like oh I'm as important as Benjamin Franklin that's kind of cool or like wow like I could be as beautiful as Joan Chan like oh my gosh like wow like I could be a love interest the way that Joan Chan is like it's really important like how we are reflected if you only see a certain part of these, getting these parts then you assume you can't there's just some subliminal message that we all receive via like visual visual entertainment and also in terms of rejection most of the time you actually just don't get a no that you either get a yes or you just don't hear ghosted Michelle in hearing this I see that completes the circle this is everything that you in designing this want to see happen that representation matters that this quarter will last beyond our lifetimes the symbolism is so important but it's connected to real community I wonder how you feel about the kind of energy as you unveil this program so we knew that it would be popular among the coin collecting community we knew that it's the new program it's a four year program we've never done this type before so we anticipated that but I don't think we really understood how embraced this program would be we had people who never talked about numismatics as coin collecting never talked about anything like that suddenly I mean Oprah a video blog about us and Drew Barrymore tweeted about us and we were in People Magazine and it's just so exciting because people started to pay attention to this and they suddenly started to want to learn more and you go through it and you're looking at the women who are being honored and there's a collection of women who some are more well known and some we didn't think were as well known and then you get surprised you get surprised by the communities as they're coming forward I mean Anna May Wong was trending about two weeks ago it just out of nowhere she was trending in social media because everyone was clamoring about the quarter it just made her and it made her story want to be heard by more people and that is something that I think so valuable in this program you know if you know the woman and you turn over the quarter and you recognize her that's phenomenal but if you don't know the woman that's even more exciting because you get to learn and you get to learn their stories and you sit back and you say why didn't I know about this one how could I have gone through 40 plus years of life not knowing who Anna May Wong is that's shameful but you can't I can't dwell on that I can only dwell on what we're doing for the youth and for everyone else it's inspiring, it's exciting so I hope that in seeing the representation you know it's actually in the law that this is a program that needs to be diverse racially, geographically across time periods of study because we are a diverse nation and our currency really should reflect who we are and this is a step towards making that happen great, thank you thank you well we're close to the end and I don't want to keep you from your special keepsakes we have one more very special guest yes Claudine would you like to do the honors yes, we'll do one more and then we'll bring out our specials I do want to mention one thing I know a number of you followed Silent Film Festival our beloved Silent Film Festival they are showing, we are showing I'm on the advisory committee Toll of the Sea on December 3rd at the Castro Theater save the Castro Seats we would like to see that please consider dropping by and so I want you to reflect on tonight and we have a member of Animes family here that we would like to come out and say a few words about her relative but I don't know if you have any last thoughts about community representation following your passion I think that would be one of the things that we really want to talk about do you feel a responsibility this is something I want to ask maybe Joan and Christa do you feel in some ways a responsibility or do you feel that that might hamper your own work or do you feel a responsibility to community in a way in the roles you would accept that you would play I think it's inevitable I think even when I sit here I was like oh maybe I even represent China because you know how I behave they might perceive what the Chinese are like or Chinese American sometimes it's just inevitable but as far as moviemaking is concerned it's my passion it has to come from a deeply seated place it's not what I believe or I think it's nothing like that it is I feel how I feel that's the most honest part of you and that's the part you give regardless of race, gender anything so that's my answer yeah Christa I do I do feel a lot of pressure because it means so much to me to be represented in someone beyond just like training and the Power Rangers and I do feel like the community is a big part of this and one thing that I do hope that people can understand is yes like just what Joan said this is also our passions and I do think sometimes our Asian-American community because there are so few of us out there there is we're under this magnifying glass to have to represent all of China or all of San Francisco or all of the entire like I was the only Asian-American teenage representative that year, girl representative that year in 2015 on Dr. Ken and I think it is easy for us as Asian people I don't know if you guys resonate but I do to be like oh it's not this enough it's not that enough I am not this enough we are not that enough why are we not getting A pluses in everything and I wish that we all understood in a loving way that the more we support each other even if it's not the perfect representation the more people who are outside our community will be like oh wow yeah I could see that Asian girl as a lead but if we don't support that and we pick apart the reasons why it's wrong we won't even get those opportunities more so even though the door is cracked open we all have to band together to pull that door open and like cheer everyone who's walking through it and that's what I hope I hope we all do lovely ok thank you all so much sorry we're kind of at that time would you thank you so much thank you to our panelists and thank you Stephen thank you so much just take two on this so yeah please no I really just felt that this was a good discussion bringing everything together with the coin and the role of the woman and the struggle and I feel that what Chris just said really resonated with me because we sometimes our community we are our own worst critics I mean it seems like there's something very Asian about being critical of ourselves and of others that look like us in the community and it's really so important to be supporting each other so I want to thank all the panelists for your perspectives thank you so I just thought that as we were planning this event I just thought that how can we talk about enemy without having a member of the family then we were scratching our heads and then two weeks ago when I went to the means event at Paramount I ran into the family and I'm so excited because and to learn having learned so much more about enemy wrong and to know that she actually has a niece by the name of Anna Wong and I so so I have to introduce myself so please come please come because I think that you know this program will not have been complete will not be complete without us hearing from a member of her family so let's give a warm San Francisco welcome to it Anna Wong thank you thank you colliding for that lovely introduction I'd like to thank everybody who was involved in selecting anime Wong to be part of this American Woman's Quarter program it is truly an honor and my family and I are beyond thrilled people call me all the day every day and they say to me when this first happened they said you know you're asking me on a quarter and I had heard a while ago so I was thinking oh yeah yeah it was it's truly exciting so I thank everybody to me and I thank everybody that was involved in selecting this when I first got the call actually it was interesting because someone from the mint called me Mr. Great Wyman who's excellent who's not here with us tonight but he called me and told me that that she had been selected and I said and I'm so sorry but I did not think the call was legit I said I said well you should speak to my attorney so he spoke to my attorney and my attorney called me and said you need to talk to this man he's really he's what he says he is and I said okay so he called him and here we are today with this lovely quarter it's interesting anyway anime wong found her passion for acting in a very young age she is as you well know as you've heard people say she is the first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood it's very you can google her and you can come up with something like I don't know something like 7 million dollar million hits you get on there as you end to see and it's very interesting I did it once and fell down that rabbit hole and but it's very interesting it's very historical and for people who don't know about her it is very interesting people who do know about her always find out something I never knew that I did you know that and I learned so much about her and for people if you're a movie buff you probably have heard about anime wong if you're not a movie buff you learn about her and children generations who don't know about her they learn about her and that's part of what I think the court program is doing Sally ride and all the other women influential and they want people that the men wants people to learn about history influential people people that maybe you learn about you may not know anything about I didn't I didn't know that much about Sally ride I actually googled her because you know google is your best friend and I googled her and I also realize wow this is so interesting and that's helpful to me I think the people and for younger people and generations you know anime wong was a part of movie history she was a part of Asian history and now she's a part of this historic women's quarter program I'm honored to be named after her I am thrilled that she's getting she's still making history today she would have been 117 years old this year yeah and maybe I shouldn't say that about her age don't tell anybody but I'm so thrilled that she's getting this honor and it's beyond amazing that everybody so it's turning out I was at the quarter event in LA and the people the turnout was amazing when you there were people we had to turn people away right there was people and I'm sure then this was this was completely full and so I truly thank you for everybody for keeping my legacy my aunt's legacy alive I am proud to be part of her legacy and I will continue to keep her legacy alive and fight for equality among Asians and of all ethnicities so thank you so much and at this time I'd like to bring up John Chu with the Mint thank you Anna let's give Anna another round of applause Anna flew in today from LA this afternoon and is flying out tonight so she made it for this special occasion so thank you Anna okay it has truly been a pleasure for the women to honor Anna May Wong the first Asian American on a circulating coin with you tonight I'd like to close by thanking Michael Lambert and the San Francisco Public Library for hosting this event Claudine Chang and the Asian Pacific American Heritage Foundation Steven Gong and the Center for Asian American Media City Administrator Carmen Chu she had to go early but Joan Chen of course Christa Marie Yu Anna Wong Michelle Thompson and our U.S. Mint team and everyone here joining us today thank you this includes the program thank you and have a great night I also want to acknowledge all the community organizations whose logo you've seen at the back of the program and if you're here earlier in the loop before the program started I just really want to thank all the organizations and especially the two city agencies the San Francisco Human Rights Commission representatives are here and the San Francisco Film Commission our executive director is here thank you so much for your support and enjoy your coin thank you