Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are of Hispanic or Latino origin (ethnicity).

The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and "generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country." The race categories include both racial and national-origin groups.

Race and ethnicity are considered separate and distinct identities, with Hispanic or Latino origin asked as a separate question. Thus, in addition to their race or races, all respondents are categorized by membership in one of two ethnicities, which are "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".

In 1997, OMB issued a Federal Register Notice regarding revisions to the standards for the classification of federal data on race and ethnicity. OMB developed race and ethnic standards in order to provide "consistent data on race and ethnicity throughout the Federal Government. The development of the data standards stem in large measure from new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws." Among the changes, OMB issued the instruction to "mark one or more races" after noting evidence of increasing numbers of interracial children and wanting to capture the diversity in a measurable way, and after having received requests by people who wanted to be able to acknowledge their or their children's full ancestry rather than identifying with only one group. Prior to this decision, the Census and other government data collections asked people to report only one race.

How data on race and ethnicity are used

The OMB states that “many federal programs are put into effect based on the race data obtained from the decennial census (i.e., promoting equal employment opportunities; assessing racial disparities in health and environmental risks). Race data are also critical for the basic research behind many policy decisions. States require these data to meet legislative redistricting requirements. The data are needed to monitor compliance with the Voting Rights Act by local jurisdictions."

"Data on ethnic groups are important for putting into effect a number of federal statutes (i.e., enforcing bilingual election rules under the Voting Rights Act; monitoring and enforcing equal employment opportunities under the Civil Rights Act). Data on Ethnic Groups are also needed by local governments to run programs and meet legislative requirements (i.e., identifying segments of the population who may not be receiving medical services under the Public Health Act; evaluating whether financial institutions are meeting the credit needs of minority populations under the Community Reinvestment Act).”

Brief overview of race and ethnicity in the U.S. Census' history

Census 1790

In 1790, first official year of the U.S. Census, the following questions were asked, four of which had racial implications:

Number of free White males aged under 16 years

Number of free White males aged 16 years and upward

Number of free White females

Number of other free persons

Number of slaves

In 1800 and 1810, the age question regarding free white males was more detailed.

Census 1820

The 1820 census built on the questions asked in 1810 by asking age questions about the slaves who were owned. Also the term “colored” enters the census rhetoric. In addition, a question stating “Number of foreigners not naturalized” was included.

Census 1830

For the 1830 census, a new question which stated “The number of White persons who were foreigners not naturalized” was included, as well as combining the number and age question of both slaves and free colored individuals.

Census 1850

The 1850 census saw a dramatic shift in the way information about residents was collected. For the first time, free persons were listed individually instead of by head of household. There were two questionnaires: one for free inhabitants and one for slaves. The question on the free inhabitants schedule about color was a column that was to be left blank if a person was White, marked "B" if a person was Black, and marked "M" if a person was Mulatto. Slaves were listed by owner, and classified by gender and age, not individually, and the question about color was a column that was to be marked with a "B" if the slave was Black and an "M" if Mulatto.

Census 1870

For the 1870 census, the color/racial question was expanded to include “C” for Chinese, which was a category that included all east Asians, as well as “I” for American Indians.

Census 1890

For 1890, the Census Office changed the design of the population questionnaire. Residents were still listed individually, but a new questionnaire sheet was used for each family. Additionally, this was the first year that the census distinguished between different East Asian races, such as Japanese and Chinese, due to increased immigration. This census also marked the beginning of the term “race” in the questionnaires. Enumerators were instructed to write "White," "Black," "Mulatto," "Quadroon," "Octoroon," "Chinese," "Japanese," or "Indian."

Census 1900

For 1900, the “Color or Race” question was slightly modified, removing the term “Mulatto”. Also, there was an inclusion of an “Indian Population Schedule” in which “enumerators were instructed to use a special expanded questionnaire for American Indians living on reservations or in family groups off of reservations.” This expanded version included the question “Fraction of person's lineage that is white.”

Census 1910

The 1910 census was similar to that of 1900, but it included a re-insertion of “Mulatto” and a question about the respondent's "mother tongue.” “Ot” was also added to signify "other races", with space for a race to be written in. This decade's version of the Indian Population Schedule featured questions asking the individual’s proportion of white, black, or American Indian lineage.

Census 1920

The 1920 census questionnaire was similar to 1910, but excluded a separate schedule for American Indians. “Hin”, “Kor”, and “Fil” were also added to the “Color or Race” question, signifying Hindu (South Asia Indian), Korean, and Filipino, respectively.

Census 1930

The biggest change in this year’s census was in racial classification. Enumerators were instructed to no longer use the "Mulatto" classification. Instead, they were given special instructions for reporting the race of interracial persons. A person with both White and Black ancestry (termed "blood") was to be recorded as "Negro," no matter the fraction of that lineage (the "one-drop rule"). A person of mixed Black and American Indian ancestry was also to be recorded as "Neg" (for "Negro") unless he was considered to be "predominantly" American Indian and accepted as such within the community. A person with both White and American Indian ancestry was to be recorded as an Indian, unless his American Indian ancestry was small, and he was accepted as White within the community. In all situations in which a person had White and some other racial ancestry, he was to be reported as that other race. Persons who had minority interracial ancestry were to be reported as the race of their father.

For the first and only time, "Mexican" was listed as a race. Enumerators were instructed that all persons born in Mexico, or whose parents were born in Mexico, should be listed as Mexicans, and not under any other racial category. But, in prior censuses and in 1940, enumerators were instructed to list Mexican Americans as white.

The Supplemental American Indian questionnaire was back, but in abbreviated form. It featured a question asking if the person was of full or mixed American Indian ancestry.

Census 1940 (Population)

The 1940 census was the first to include separate population and housing questionnaires. The race category of "Mexican" was eliminated in 1940, and the population of Mexican descent was counted with the White population.

Census 1950 (Population)

The 1950 Census questionnaire removed the word “color” from the racial question, and also removed Hindu and Korean from the race choices.

Census 1960 (Population)

The 1960 Census re-added the word “color” to the racial question, and changed “Indian” to “American Indian”, as well as added Hawaiian, Part-Hawaiian, Aleut, and Eskimo. The Other (print out race) option was removed.

Census 1970 (Population)

This year’s census included “Negro or Black”, re-added Korean and the Other race option. There was a questionnaire that was asked of only a sample of respondents. These questions were as follows:

a. Where was this person born?

b. Is this person's origin or descent...

Mexican

Puerto Rican

Cuban

Central or South American

Other Spanish

None of These

14. What country was the person's father born in?

15. What country was the person's mother born in?

16.

a. For persons born in a foreign country- Is the person naturalized?

b. When did the person come to the United States to stay?

17. What language, other than English, was spoken in the person's home as a child?

Spanish

French

German

Other

None, only English

Census 1980 (Population)

This year added several options to the race question, including Vietnamese, Indian (East) Guamanian, Samoan, and re-added Aleut. Again, the term “color” was removed from the racial question, and the following questions were asked of a sample of respondents:

11. In what state or foreign country was the person born?

12. If this person was born in a foreign country...

a. Is this person a naturalized citizen of the United States?

b. When did this person come the United States to stay?

13.

a. Does this person speak a language other than English at home?

b. If yes, what is this language?

c. If yes, how well does this person speak English?

14. What is this person's ancestry?

Census 1990 (Population)

The racial categories in this year are as they appear in the 2000 and 2010 Census. The following questions were asked of a sample of respondents for the 1990 Census:

8. In what U.S. State or foreign country was this person born?

9. Is this person a citizen of the United States?

10. If this person was not born in the United States, when did this person come to the United States to stay?

The 1990 Census was not designed to capture multiple racial responses, and when individuals marked the Other race option and provided a multiple write in, the response was assigned according to the race written first. “For example, a write in of "Black-White" was assigned a code of Black, a write in of "White-Black" was assigned a code of White.”

Census 2000 (Population)

Race was asked differently in the Census 2000 in several other ways than previously. Most significantly, respondents were given the option of selecting one or more race categories to indicate racial identities. Data show that nearly seven million Americans identified as members of two or more races. Because of these changes, the Census 2000 data on race are not directly comparable with data from the 1990 census or earlier censuses. Use of caution is therefore recommended when interpreting changes in the racial composition of the US population over time.

The 23rd federal census, 2010 asks one ethnic and one race question (questions 1-4 not reproduced here, questions 5 and 6 paraphrased):

8. Is the person of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin?

*No, not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin

*Yes, Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano

*Yes, Puerto Rican

*Yes, Cuban

*Yes, another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin — Print origin, for example, Argentinean, Colombian, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, Spaniard, and so on.

9. What is the person's race?

*White

*Black, African Am., or Negro

*American Indian or Alaska Native — Print name of enrolled or principal tribe.

*Asian Indian

*Chinese

*Filipino

*Other Asian — Print race, for example, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Pakistani, Cambodian, and so on.

*Japanese

*Korean

*Vietnamese

*Native Hawaiian

*Guamanian or Chamorro

*Samoan

*Other Pacific Islander — Print race, for example, Fijian, Tongan, and so on.

*Some other race — Print race.

This census acknowledged that "race categories include both racial and national-origin groups."

The following definitions apply to the 2000 census only.

"White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "White" or report entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish."

"Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as 'Black, African Am., or Negro,' or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian."

"American Indian and Alaska Native. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintain tribal affiliation or community attachment."

"Asian. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes 'Asian Indian,' 'Chinese', 'Filipino', 'Korean', 'Japanese', 'Vietnamese', and 'Other Asian'."

"Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. It includes people who indicate their race as 'Native Hawaiian', 'Guamanian or Chamorro', 'Samoan', and 'Other Pacific Islander'."

"Some other race. Includes all other responses not included in the 'White', 'Black or African American', 'American Indian and Alaska Native', 'Asian' and 'Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander' race categories described above. Respondents providing write-in entries such as multiracial, mixed, interracial, We-Sort, or a Hispanic/Latino group (for example, Mexican, Puerto Rican, or Cuban) in the "Some other race" category are included here."

"Two or more races. People may have chosen to provide two or more races either by checking two or more race response check boxes, by providing multiple write-in responses, or by some combination of check boxes and write-in responses."

The Federal government of the United States has mandated that "in data collection and presentation, federal agencies are required to use a minimum of two ethnicities: 'Hispanic or Latino' and 'Not Hispanic or Latino'." The Census Bureau defines "Hispanic or Latino" as "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race." For discussion of the meaning and scope of the Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, see the Hispanic and Latino Americans and Racial and ethnic demographics of the United States articles.

Use of the word ''ethnicity'' for Hispanics only is considerably more restricted than its conventional meaning, which covers other distinctions, some of which are covered by the "race" and "ancestry" questions. The distinct questions accommodate the possibility of Hispanic and Latino Americans' also declaring various racial identities (see also White Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Latinos, and Black Hispanic and Latino Americans).

In the 2000 Census, 12.5% of the US population reported "Hispanic or Latino" ethnicity and 87.5% reported "Not-Hispanic or Latino" ethnicity.

Relation between ethnicity and race in census results

The Census Bureau warns that data on race in 2000 Census are not directly comparable to those collected in previous censuses. Many US residents consider race and ethnicity to be the same concept.

100 93.7 47.9 2.0 1.2 0.3 0.1 42.2 6.3 5.3 1.0

!Race !!Hispanic orLatino!!% ofH/L!!% ofUS!!Not Hispanicor Latino!!% of NotH/L!!% ofUS
!Any races	35,305,818	|	12.5	246,116,088	100	87.5
!One race:	33,081,736	|	11.8	241,513,942	98.1	85.8
!White	16,907,852	|	6.0	194,552,774	79.1	69.1
!Black orAfrican A.	710,353	|	0.3	33,947,837	13.8	12.1
!A. Indian/Alaska Nat.	407,073	|	0.1	2,068,883	0.8	0.7
!Asian	119,829	|	<0.1	10,123,169	4.1	3.6
!Hawaiian N.& Pacific Is.	45,326	|	<0.1	353,509	0.1	0.1
!Some other	14,891,303	|	5.3	467,770	0.2	0.2
!2+ races:	2,224,082	|	0.8	4,602,146	1.9	1.6
!Some other+ W/B/N/A	1,859,538	|	0.7	1,302,875	0.5	0.5
!2+ W/B/N/A	364,544	|	0.1	3,299,271	1.3	1.2

In the 2000 Census, respondents were tallied in each of the race groups they reported. Consequently, the total of each racial category exceeds the total population because some people reported more than one race.

The Census Bureau implemented a Census Quality Survey, gathering data from approximately 50,000 households in order to assess the reporting of race and Hispanic origin in the 2000 Census with the purpose creating a way to make comparisons between the 2000 Census with previous Census racial data.

The AAA also stated,

The recommendations of the AAA were not adopted by the Census Bureau for the 2000 Census or the 2010 Census.

2010 Census

The 2010 US Census includes changes designed to more clearly distinguish Hispanic ethnicity as not being a race. That includes adding the sentence: "For this census, Hispanic origins are not races." Additionally, the Hispanic terms are modified from "Hispanic or Latino" to "Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin".

Although used in the Census and the American Community Survey, "Some other race" is not an official race, and the Bureau considered eliminating it prior to the 2000 Census. As the 2010 census form does not contain the question titled "Ancestry" found in recent censuses, there are campaigns to get non-Hispanic West Indian Americans, Arab Americans and Iranian Americans to indicate their ethnic or national background through the race question, specifically the "Some other race" category.

The Interagency Committee has suggested that the concept of marking multiple boxes be extended to the Hispanic origin question, thereby freeing individuals from having to choose between their parents' ethnic heritages. In other words, a respondent could chose both "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino".

Other agencies

In 2001, the National Institutes of Health adopted the new language to comply with the revisions to Directive 15, as did the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the United States Department of Labor in 2007. See Race and ethnicity (EEO).

See also

Criticism of the term Latino

Language (United States Census)

Race (classification of humans)

Race in the United States

Race and ethnicity in the United States

United States Census, 2000

References

Category:Demographics of the United States Category:Race in the United States

de:Race (United States Census) es:Raza (censo de los Estados Unidos) fr:Race (recensement des États-Unis) gl:Raza (censo dos Estados Unidos) id:Ras dan etnisitas di Sensus Amerika Serikat ru:Расовый состав США

Name	Nigel Farage
Honorific-suffix	MEP
Office	Europe of Freedom and Democracy President
Term start	1 July 2009 (de facto)
Predecessor	(post established)
Office	Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party
Term start	5 November 2010
Predecessor	Jeffrey Titford
Term start1	27 September 2006
Term end1	27 November 2009
Predecessor1	Roger Knapman
Successor1	Lord Pearson of Rannoch
Constituency mp2	South East England
Parliament2	European
Term start2	15 July 1999
Birth date	April 03, 1964
Birth place	Kent, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Party	UK Independence Party
Spouse	Gráinne Hayes (1988-?, divorced)Kirsten Mehr (1999-present)
Children	4
Alma mater	Dulwich College
Website	Nigel Farage MEP
Footnotes	}}

Nigel Paul Farage (; ; born 3 April 1964) is a British politician and is the Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a position he previously held from September 2006 to November 2009. He is a current Member of the European Parliament for South East England and co-chairs the Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Democracy group.

Farage was a founding member of the UKIP, having left the Conservative Party in 1992 after they signed the Maastricht Treaty. Having unsuccessfully campaigned in European and Westminster parliamentary elections for UKIP since 1994, he gained a seat as an MEP for South East England in the 1999 European Parliament Election — the first year the regional list system was used — and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage describes himself as a libertarian and rejects the notion that he is a conservative.

In September 2006, Farage became the UKIP Leader and led the party through the 2009 European Parliament Election in which it received the second highest share of the popular vote, defeating Labour and the Liberal Democrats with over two million votes. However he stepped down in November 2009 to concentrate on contesting the Speaker John Bercow's seat of Buckingham in the 2010 general election.

At the 2010 General Election, Farage failed to unseat John Bercow and received only the third highest share of the vote in the constituency. Shortly after the polls opened on 6 May 2010, Nigel Farage was injured in an aircraft crash in Northamptonshire. The two-seated PZL-104 Wilga 35A had been towing a pro-UKIP banner when it flipped over and crashed shortly after takeoff. Both Farage and the pilot were hospitalised with non-life-threatening injuries.

In November 2010, Farage successfully stood in the 2010 UKIP leadership contest, following the resignation of its leader, Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Farage was also ranked 41st (out of 100) in ''The Daily Telegraph'''s Top 100 most influential right-wingers poll in October 2009, citing his media savvy and his success with UKIP in the European Elections. Farage was ranked 58th in the 2010 list compiled by Iain Dale and Brian Brivati for the Daily Telegraph.

Background

Farage was educated at Dulwich College before joining a commodity brokerage firm in London. He ran his own brokerage business from the early 1990s until 2002. In his early 20s Farage was diagnosed with testicular cancer but made a full recovery.

Farage has been married twice. He married Gráinne Hayes in 1988, with whom he had two children: Samuel (1989) and Thomas (1991). In 1999 he married Kirsten Mehr, a German national, by whom he has two more children, Victoria (born 2000) and Isabelle (born 2005).

Farage has also penned his own memoirs, entitled "Fighting Bull." It outlines the founding of UKIP and his personal and political life so far.

Political career

Conservative Party

Active in the Conservative Party from his school days, Farage left the party in 1992 when John Major's government signed the Treaty on European Union at Maastricht.

UKIP and the European Parliament

Farage became a founding member of UKIP in 1993.

He was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009. Farage is presently the leader of the thirteen-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the multinational eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy.

UKIP party leadership

On 12 September 2006, Farage was elected leader of UKIP with 45% of the vote, 20% ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's representation in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign (ten in all at this moment).

At his maiden speech to the UKIP conference on 8 October 2006, he told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". Farage said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain — Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are virtually indistinguishable from each other on nearly all the main issues" and "you can't put a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."

At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took part in a three-hour live interview and phone-in with James Whale on national radio station talkSPORT. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his intention to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". However Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten. He stood again for UKIP leadership in 2010 after his successor Lord Pearson stood down. On the 5th November 2010 it was announced Farage had won the leadership contest.

Westminster elections

Farage had unsuccessfully contested UK parliamentary elections for UKIP five times, both before and after his election as an MEP in 1999. Under the 2002 European Union decision to forbid MEPs from holding a dual mandate, if he was ever elected to the House of Commons, he would have to resign his seat as an MEP.

When he contested the Bromley & Chislehurst constituency in a May 2006 by-election, organised after the sitting MP representing it, eurosceptic Conservative Eric Forth, died, Farage came third, winning 8% of the vote, beating the Labour Party candidate. This was the second-best by-election result recorded by UKIP out of 25 results, and the first time since the Liverpool Walton by-election in 1991 that a party in government had been pushed into fourth place in a parliamentary by-election on mainland Britain.

2010 UK General election

On 4 September 2009 Farage resigned as leader of UKIP to concentrate on his campaign to become Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election. He later told Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up too much time.

He stood against Buckingham MP John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite a convention that the speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in his or her bid for re-election by any of the major parties.

On 6 May, on the morning the polls opened in the election, just before eight o'clock Farage was involved in a light aircraft crash, suffering injuries described as non-life-threatening. A spokesperson told the BBC that "it was unlikely Mr Farage would be discharged from hospital today [6 May] Although his injuries were originally described as minor, his sternum and ribs were broken, and his lung punctured. The Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said that the aeroplane was towing a banner, which caught in the tailplane, forcing the nose down.

Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected, and John Stevens, a former Conservative MEP (Defected to Lib-Dems), who campaigned with "Flipper the Dolphin" (a reference to MPs flipping second homes) came second with 10,331.

On 1 December 2010, the pilot of the aircraft involved in the accident was charged with threatening to kill Farage. He was also charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident. In April 2011, Justin Adams was found guilty of making death threats. The judge said the defendant was "clearly extremely disturbed" at the time the offences happened adding "He is a man who does need help. If I can find a way of giving him help I will."

Alternative Vote referendum, May 2011

Farage declared himself personally in favour of the Alternative Vote system of May 2011, saying first-past-the-post is a "nightmare" for UKIP. However, the party's stance has to be decided by its central policy making committee.

Controversies and whistleblowing

Copyright infringement

In 1999 the BBC spent four months filming a documentary about his European elections campaign but didn't show it. Farage, then head of UKIP's South East office, asked for a video and got friends to make illegal copies which were sold for £5 through the UKIP magazine. Surrey Trading Standards investigated and Farage has admitted the offence.

Expenses disclosure

In May 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that Farage had said in a speech to the Foreign Press Association that over ten years as a member of the European Parliament he received and spent nearly £2 million of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances, on top of his £64,000 a year salary.

The former Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, said that this showed that Farage was "happy to line his pockets with gold". Farage called this a "misrepresentation", pointing out that the money had been used to promote UKIP's message, not salary, but he welcomed the focus on the issue of MEP expenses, claiming that "[o]ver a five year term each and every one of Britain's 78 MEPs gets about £1 million. It is used to employ administrative staff, run their offices and to travel back and forth between their home, Brussels and Strasbourg." He also pointed out the money spent on the YES campaign in Ireland by the European Commission was "something around 440 million", making the NO campaign's figure insignificant in comparison.

Jacques Barrot

On 18 November 2004, Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, the French Commissioner designate, had been barred from elected office in France for 2 years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He claimed that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty. Although initial BBC reports claimed that, under French law, it was illegal even to mention the conviction, the prohibition in question only applies to French officials in the course of their duties. The president of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences".However, the following day it was confirmed that Barrot had received an 8 month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority. The Commission's president, Jose Manuel Barroso admitted that he had not known of Barrot's criminal record when appointing him as a Commission vice-president. The Socialist and Liberal groups in the European Parliament then joined UKIP in demanding the sacking of Barrot for failing to disclose the conviction during his confirmation hearings.

José Manuel Barroso

During the spring of 2005, Farage requested that the European Commission disclose where the individual Commissioners had spent their holidays. The Commission did not provide the information requested, on the basis that the Commissioners had a right of privacy. The German newspaper ''Die Welt'' reported that the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso had spent a week on the yacht of the Greek shipping billionaire Spiro Latsis. It emerged soon afterwards that this had occurred a month before the Commission under Barroso's predecessor Romano Prodi approved 10.3 million euro of Greek state aid for Latsis' shipping company. It also became known that Peter Mandelson, then a member of the Commission, had accepted a trip to Jamaica from an unrevealed source.

Farage persuaded around 75 MEPs from across the political divide to back a motion of no confidence in Barroso, which would be sufficient to compel Barroso to appear before the European Parliament to be questioned on the issue. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared before Parliament at a debate on 26 May 2005. The motion was heavily defeated. A Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer, was expelled from his group, the European People's Party - European Democrats (EPP-ED) in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Poettering as a result of his support for Farage's motion.

Joseph Daul

In January 2007, the French farmers' leader Joseph Daul was elected the new leader of the European People's Party–European Democrats (EPP-ED), the European Parliamentary grouping which then included the British Conservatives. The UK Independence Party almost immediately revealed that Daul had been under judicial investigation in France since 2004 as part of an inquiry into the alleged misuse of public funds worth €16 million (£10.6 million) by French farming unions." It was not suggested that Daul had personally benefited, but was accused of "complicity and concealment of the abuse of public funds." Daul accused Farage of publicising the investigation for political reasons and threatened to sue Farage, but did not do so though the court dropped all charges against him.

Prince Charles

Prince Charles gave a speech to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008, in which he called for EU leadership in the war against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to remain seated and went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve and foolish at best." Farage continued: "How can somebody like Prince Charles be allowed to come to the European Parliament at this time to announce he thinks it should have more powers? It would have been better for the country he wants to rule one day if he had stayed home and tried to persuade Gordon Brown to give the people the promised referendum [on the Treaty of Lisbon]." The leader of the UK Labour Party's MEPs, Gary Titley, accused Farage of anti-Royalism. Titley said: "I was embarrassed and disgusted when the Leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, remained firmly seated during the lengthy standing ovation Prince Charles received. I had not realised Mr Farage's blind adherence to right wing politics involved disloyalty and discourtesy to the Royal Family. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself and should apologise to the British people he represents."

Herman Van Rompuy

After the speech of Herman Van Rompuy on 24 February 2010 in the European parliament, Farage—to protests from other MEPs—addressed the first long-term President of the European Council saying that he has the "charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of low grade bank clerk", also asserting that Van Rompuy's "intention is to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of European nation states." He also referred to Belgium as a "non-country", and that "nobody in Europe" knows who Van Rompuy is, nor how he was elected. Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only hold in contempt, but I'm not going to comment further." After refusing to apologise for behaviour that was, in the words of the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House", Farage was reprimanded and had his right to ten days' allowance (expenses) rescinded. The President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, said after his meeting with Farage:- 'I defend absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union, but not to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come. [. . .] I myself fought for free speech as the absolute cornerstone of a democratic society. But with freedom comes responsibility - in this case, to respect the dignity of others and of our institutions. I am disappointed by Mr Farage's behaviour, which sits ill with the great parliamentary tradition of his own country. I cannot accept this sort of behaviour in the European Parliament. I invited him to apologise, but he declined to do so. I have therefore - as an expression of the seriousness of the matter - rescinded his right to ten days' daily allowance as a Member'. Questioned by Camilla Long in the article entitled "brimming over with bile and booze" in which she appeared to make light over his fight against cancer, Farage declared it wasn't abusive, it was right.

Views on the Euro

From taking office as a UKIP MEP in 1999 Farage has often voiced opposition to the "Euro project". His argument is that "a one size fits all interest rate" can not work for countries with structually different economies, often using the example of Greece and Germany to emphasise contrast. He predicted the need for 'bail outs' before European Commission and European Central Bank officials admit that these are necessary. Farage predicted that Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain would all require such assistance. To date Spain is the only predicted country that have not asked for a 'bail out' but Farage warns: "You can ignore the markets if you want to but in time the markets will not ignore you". Farage also reinforces Germany's argument that Italy "should never have joined the Euro" but has not explicitly predicted the need for similar assistance. Farage predicts that if the situation continues it will lead to violence due to the peoples inability to "determine their own futures through the ballot box" as it will become the only "logical" tool to enable them to escape from their "economic prison" i.e. The Eurozone. He proclaims "I can only hope and pray that the euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens." Farage strongly opposes the use of 'bail outs' and claims "buying your own debt with tax payers money" will not solve the problem and that "if we do the next debt crisis won't be a country" "it will be the European Central Bank its self".

Electoral performance

Nigel Farage has contested several elections under the United Kingdom Independence Party banner:

Itchen, Test and Avon, European Parliament Election 1994 - 12,423 votes, representing 5.2% of total votes cast

Eastleigh by-election, 1994 - 952, 1.4%

Salisbury, 1997 general election - 3,332, 5.7%

European Parliament election, 1999 - elected member for South East England from party list

Bexhill and Battle, 2001 general election - 3,474, 7.8%

European Parliament election, 2004 - elected member for South East England from party list

South Thanet, 2005 general election - 2,079, 5.0%

Bromley and Chislehurst by-election, 2006 - 2,307, 8.0%

European Parliament election, 2009 - elected member for South East England from party list.

Buckingham, 2010 general election - 8,410, 17.4%

Footnotes

References

2002 Amnesty law

Penal Code, articles L133-9, L133-10, L133-11

External links

UKIP profile

Profile at European Parliament website

Official website of the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament

Political group in the European Parliament

Category:1964 births Category:Living people Category:United Kingdom Independence Party politicians Category:Members of the European Parliament for English constituencies Category:Critics of the European Union Category:People from Farnborough, London Category:Old Alleynians Category:Leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party Category:British libertarians Category:UK Independence Party MEPs Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 1999–2004 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2004–2009 Category:MEPs for the United Kingdom 2009–2014

br:Nigel Farage cs:Nigel Farage cy:Nigel Farage de:Nigel Farage et:Nigel Farage es:Nigel Farage fr:Nigel Farage it:Nigel Farage nl:Nigel Farage pl:Nigel Farage ro:Nigel Farage simple:Nigel Farage fi:Nigel Farage sv:Nigel Farage

name	Anna May Wong
chinesename	黃柳霜
pinyinchinesename	Huáng Liǔshuāng
jyutpingchinesename	Wong4 Lau5 Soeng1
birthname	Wong Liu Tsong
birth date	January 03, 1905
birth place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
death date	February 02, 1961
death place	Santa Monica, California, U.S.
occupation	Actress, television presenter, singer, author
yearsactive	1919–61
parents	Wong Sam Sing Lee Gon Toy
awards	Hollywood Walk of Fame - Motion Picture1700 Vine Street }}

Anna May Wong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star. Her long and varied career spanned both silent and sound film, television, stage, and radio.

Born near the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in ''The Toll of the Sea'' (1922), one of the first movies made in color and Douglas Fairbanks' ''The Thief of Bagdad'' (1924). Wong became a fashion icon, and by 1924 had achieved international stardom.

Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, she left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them ''Piccadilly'' (1929).

She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as ''Daughter of the Dragon'' (1931) and ''Daughter of Shanghai'' (1937), and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's ''Shanghai Express'' (1932).

In 1935 Wong was dealt the most severe disappointment of her career, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to consider her for the leading role in its film version of Pearl S. Buck's ''The Good Earth'', choosing instead the German actress Luise Rainer to play the leading role. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her family's ancestral village and studying Chinese culture. In the late 1930s, she starred in several B movies for Paramount Pictures, portraying Chinese-Americans in a positive light. She paid less attention to her film career during World War II, when she devoted her time and money to helping the Chinese cause against Japan. Wong returned to the public eye in the 1950s in several television appearances as well as her own series in 1951, ''The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong'', the first U.S. television show starring an Asian-American. She had been planning to return to film in ''Flower Drum Song'' when she died in 1961, at the age of 56.

For decades after her death, Wong was remembered principally for the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" and demure "Butterfly" roles that she was often given. Her life and career were re-evaluated in the years around the centennial of her birth, in three major literary works and film retrospectives. Interest in her life story continues and another biography, ''Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story'', was published in 2009.

Early life

Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong (meaning "frosted yellow willows") on January 3, 1905, on Flower Street in Los Angeles, one block north of Chinatown, in an integrated community of Chinese, Irish, German, and Japanese residents. She was the second of seven children born to Wong Sam Sing, owner of the Sam Kee Laundry in Los Angeles, and his second wife Lee Gon Toy.

Anna May Wong's parents were second-generation Chinese-Americans; her maternal and paternal grandparents had resided in the U.S. since at least 1855. Her paternal grandfather, A Wong Wong, was a merchant who owned two stores in Michigan Hills, a gold-mining area in Placer County. He had come from Chang On, a village near Taishan, Guangdong Province, China in 1853. Anna May's father spent his youth traveling between the U.S. and China, where he married his first wife and fathered a son in 1890. He returned to the U.S. in the late 1890s, and in 1901, while continuing to support his family in China, he married a second wife, Anna May's mother. Anna May's older sister Lew Ying (Lulu) was born in late 1902, and Anna May was born in 1905, followed by five more children.

In 1910, the family moved to a neighborhood on Figueroa Street where they were the only Chinese on their block, living alongside mostly Mexican and Eastern European families. The two hills separating their new home from Chinatown helped Wong to assimilate into American culture. At first she attended public school with her older sister, but when the girls were the target of racist taunts from other students, their parents moved them to a Presbyterian Chinese school. Classes were taught in English, but Wong attended a Chinese language school afternoons and on Saturdays.

About that same time, U.S. motion picture production began to relocate from the east coast to the Los Angeles area. Movies were shot constantly in and around Wong's neighborhood. She began going to Nickelodeon movie theaters and quickly became obsessed with the "flickers," missing school and using lunch money to attend the cinema. Her father was not happy with her interest in films, feeling that it interfered with her studies, but Wong decided to pursue a career in film regardless. At nine years of age, she begged filmmakers for parts, earning herself the nickname "C.C.C." or "Curious Chinese Child". By the age of 11, Wong had come up with her stage name of Anna May Wong, formed by joining both her English and family names.

Early career

Wong was working at Hollywood's Ville de Paris department store when Metro Pictures needed 300 girl extras to appear in Alla Nazimova's film ''The Red Lantern'' (1919). Without her father's knowledge, a friend of his with movie connections helped Anna May land an uncredited role as an extra carrying a lantern.

She worked steadily for the next two years as an extra in various movies, including Priscilla Dean and Colleen Moore pictures. While still a student, Wong came down with an illness identified as St. Vitus's Dance which caused her to miss months of school. She was on the verge of emotional collapse when her father took her to a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. The treatments proved successful, though Wong later claimed this had more to do with her dislike of the methods. Other Chinese thought such as Confucianism and particularly Taoism and the teachings of Laozi had a strong influence on Wong's personal philosophy throughout her life. The family's religious life also included Christian thought, in the form of Presbyterianism, and as an adult she was a Christian Scientist for some time.

Finding it difficult to keep up with both her schoolwork and her passion, she dropped out of Los Angeles High School in 1921 to pursue a full-time acting career. Reflecting on her decision, Wong told ''Motion Picture Magazine'' in 1931: "I was so young when I began that I knew I still had youth if I failed, so I determined to give myself 10 years to succeed as an actress."

In 1921, Wong received her first screen credit for ''Bits of Life'', the first anthology film, in which she played the wife of Lon Chaney's character, Toy Ling, in a segment entitled "Hop". She later recalled it fondly as the only time she played the role of a mother; her appearance earned her a cover photo in the British magazine ''Picture Show''.

At the age of 17 she played her first leading role, in the early Metro two-strip Technicolor movie ''The Toll of the Sea''. Written by Frances Marion, the story was based loosely on ''Madama Butterfly''. ''Variety'' magazine singled Wong out for praise, noting her "extraordinarily fine" acting. ''The New York Times'' commented, "Miss Wong stirs in the spectator all the sympathy her part calls for, and she never repels one by an excess of theatrical 'feeling'. She has a difficult role, a role that is botched nine times out of ten, but hers is the tenth performance. Completely unconscious of the camera, with a fine sense of proportion and remarkable pantomimic accuracy ... She should be seen again and often on the screen."

Despite such reviews, Hollywood proved reluctant to create starring roles for Wong; her ethnicity prevented U.S. filmmakers from seeing her as a leading lady. David Schwartz, the chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, notes, "She built up a level of stardom in Hollywood, but Hollywood didn’t know what to do with her." She spent the next few years in supporting roles providing "exotic atmosphere", for instance playing a concubine in Tod Browning's ''Drifting'' (1923). Still optimistic about a film career, in 1923 Wong said: "Pictures are fine, and I'm getting along all right, but it's not so bad to have the laundry back of you, so you can wait and take good parts and be independent when you're climbing." The film grossed more than $2 million and helped introduce Wong to the public.

After this second prominent role, Wong moved out of the family home into her own apartment. Conscious that Americans viewed her as "foreign born" even though she was born and raised in California, Wong began cultivating a flapper image. In March 1924, planning to make films about Chinese myths, she signed a deal creating Anna May Wong Productions; when her business partner was found to be engaging in dishonest practices, Wong brought a lawsuit against him and the company was dissolved.

It soon became evident that Wong's career would continue to be limited by American anti-miscegenation laws, which prevented her from sharing an on-screen kiss with any person of another race, even if the character was Asian, but being portrayed by a white actor. The only leading Asian man in U.S. films in the silent era was Sessue Hayakawa. Unless Asian leading men could be found, Wong could not be a leading lady.

Wong continued to be offered supporting roles in minor films, in which she was often singled out for critical praise. Despite such favorable reviews, she became increasingly disappointed with her casting and began to seek other roads to success. In early 1925 she joined a group of serial stars on a tour of the vaudeville circuits; when the tour proved to be a failure, Wong and the rest of the group returned to Hollywood.

In 1926, Wong put the first rivet into the structure of Grauman's Chinese Theatre when she joined Norma Talmadge for its groundbreaking ceremony, although she was not invited to leave her hand- and foot-prints in cement.

In the same year Wong starred in ''The Silk Bouquet''. Re-titled ''The Dragon Horse'' in 1927, the film was one of the first U.S. films to be produced with Chinese backing, provided by San Francisco's Chinese Six Companies. The story was set in China during the Ming Dynasty, and featured Asian actors playing the Asian roles.

Wong continued to be assigned supporting roles. Hollywood's Asian female characters tended toward two stereotypical poles: the naïve and self-sacrificing "Butterfly" and the sly and deceitful "Dragon Lady". In ''Old San Francisco'' (1927), directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Brothers, Wong played a "Dragon Lady", a gangster's daughter. In ''Mr. Wu'' (1927) she played a supporting role as increasing censorship against mixed race onscreen couples cost her the lead. In ''The Crimson City'', released the following year, this happened again.

Move to Europe

Tired of being both typecast and being passed over for lead Asian character roles in favor of non-Asian actresses, Wong left Hollywood in 1928 for Europe. Interviewed by Doris Mackie for ''Film Weekly'' in 1933, Wong complained about her Hollywood roles: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play." She commented: "There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles."

In Europe, Wong became a sensation, starring in notable films such as ''Schmutziges Geld'' (aka ''Song'' and ''Show Life'', 1928), and ''Großstadtschmetterling'' (''City Butterfly''). Of the German critics' response to ''Song'', ''The New York Times'' reported that Wong was "acclaimed not only as an actress of transcendent talent but as a great beauty". The article noted that Germans passed over Wong's American background: "Berlin critics, who were unanimous in praise of both the star and the production, neglect to mention that Anna May is of American birth. They mention only her Chinese origins." In Vienna, she played the title role in the operetta ''Tschun Tschi'' in fluent German.

While in Germany, Wong became an inseparable friend of the director Leni Riefenstahl. Her close friendships with several women throughout her life, including Marlene Dietrich and Cecil Cunningham, led to rumors of lesbianism which damaged her public reputation. These rumors, in particular of her supposed relationship with Dietrich, embarrassed Wong's family who in any case had long been opposed to her acting career, at that time not considered to be an entirely respectable profession.

London producer Basil Dean bought the play ''A Circle of Chalk'' for Wong to appear in with the young Laurence Olivier, her first stage performance in the UK. Composer Constant Lambert, infatuated with the actress after having seen her in films, attended the play on its opening night and subsequently composed ''Eight Poems of Li Po'', dedicated to her.

Wong made her last silent film, ''Piccadilly'', in 1929, the first of five English films in which she had a starring role. The film caused a sensation in the UK. Gilda Gray was the top-billed actress, but ''Variety'' commented that Wong "outshines the star," and that "from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals 'Piccadilly' from Miss Gray." Though the film presented Wong in her most sensual role in a British film, once again she was not permitted to kiss her Caucasian love interest, and a controversial planned scene involving a kiss was cut before the film was released. Forgotten for decades after its release, ''Piccadilly'' was later restored by the British Film Institute. ''Time'' magazine's Richard Corliss calls ''Piccadilly'' Wong's best film, and ''The Guardian'' reports that the rediscovery of this film and Wong's performance in it has been responsible for a restoration of the actress' reputation.

While in London, Wong was romantically linked with writer and broadcasting executive Eric Maschwitz, who wrote the lyrics to ''These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You)'' as an evocation of his longing for her after they parted. Wong's first talkie was ''The Flame of Love'' (1930), which she recorded in French, English, and German. Though Wong's performance – particularly her handling of the three languages – was lauded, all three versions of the film received negative reviews.

Return to Hollywood

During the 1930s, American studios were looking for fresh European talent. Ironically, Wong caught their eye and she was offered a contract with Paramount Studios in 1930. Enticed by the promise of lead roles and top billing, she returned to the United States. The prestige and training she had gained during her years in Europe led to a starring role on Broadway in ''On the Spot'', a drama that ran for 167 performances and which she would later film as ''Dangerous to Know''. When the play's director wanted Wong to use stereotypical Japanese mannerisms, derived from ''Madame Butterfly'', in her performance of a Chinese character, Wong refused. She instead used her knowledge of Chinese style and gestures to imbue the character with a greater degree of authenticity. Following her return to Hollywood in 1930, Wong repeatedly turned to the stage and cabaret for a creative outlet.

In November 1930, Anna May's mother was run over and killed by an automobile in front of the Figueroa Street house. The family remained at the house until 1934, when Wong's father returned to his hometown in China with Anna May's younger brothers and sister. Anna May had been paying for the education of her younger siblings, who put their education to work after they relocated to China. Before the family left, Wong's father wrote a brief article for ''Xinning'', a magazine for overseas Taishanese, in which he expressed his pride in his famous daughter.

With the promise of appearing in a Josef von Sternberg film, Wong accepted another stereotypical role – the title character of Fu Manchu's vengeful daughter in ''Daughter of the Dragon'' (1931). This was the last stereotypically "evil Chinese" role Wong played, and also her one starring appearance alongside the only other well-known Asian actor of the era, Sessue Hayakawa. Though she was given the starring role, this status was not reflected in her paycheck: she was paid $6,000, while Hayakawa received $10,000 and Warner Oland, who is only in the film for 23 minutes, was paid $12,000.

Wong began using her newfound celebrity to make political statements: late in 1931, for example, she wrote a harsh criticism of the Mukden Incident and Japan's subsequent invasion of Manchuria. She also became more outspoken in her advocacy for Chinese-American causes and for better film roles. In a 1933 interview for ''Film Weekly'' entitled "I Protest", Wong criticized the negative stereotyping in ''Daughter of the Dragon'', saying, "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain – murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass! We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than the West?"

Wong appeared alongside Marlene Dietrich as a self-sacrificing courtesan in Sternberg's ''Shanghai Express''. Though contemporary reviews focused on Dietrich's acting and Sternberg's direction, film historians today judge that Wong's performance upstaged that of Dietrich.

The Chinese press had long given Wong's career very mixed reviews, and were less than favorable to her performance in ''Shanghai Express''. A Chinese newspaper ran the headline: "Paramount Utilizes Anna May Wong to Produce Picture to Disgrace China", and continued, "Although she is deficient in artistic portrayal, she has done more than enough to disgrace the Chinese race." Critics in China believed that Wong's on-screen sexuality spread negative stereotypes of Chinese women. The most virulent criticism came from the Nationalist government, but China's intellectuals and liberals were not always so opposed to Wong, as demonstrated when Peking University awarded the actress an honorary doctorate in 1932. Contemporary sources reported that this was probably the only time that an actor had been so honored.

In both America and Europe, Wong had been seen as a fashion icon for over a decade. In 1934, the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York voted her "The World's best-dressed woman", and in 1938 ''Look'' magazine named her "The World's most beautiful Chinese girl".

Atlantic crossings

After her success in Europe and prominent role in ''Shanghai Express'', Wong's Hollywood career returned to its old pattern. Because of the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules, she was passed over for the leading female role in ''The Son-Daughter'' in favor of Helen Hayes. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer deemed her "too Chinese to play a Chinese" in the film, and the Hays Office would not have allowed her to perform romantic scenes since the film's male lead, Ramon Navarro, was not Asian.

Again disappointed with Hollywood, Wong returned to Britain, where she stayed for nearly three years. In addition to appearing in four films she toured Scotland, Ireland, and outlying British provinces as part of a vaudeville show. She also appeared in the King George Silver Jubilee program in 1935. Her film ''Java Head'' (1934), though generally considered a minor effort, was the only film in which Wong kissed the lead male character, her white husband in the film. Wong's biographer, Graham Russell Hodges, commented that this may be why the film remained one of Wong's personal favorites. While in London, Wong met Mei Lanfang, one of the most famous stars of the Beijing Opera. She had long been interested in Chinese opera and Mei offered to instruct Wong if she ever visited China.

In the 1930s, the popularity of Pearl Buck's novels, especially ''The Good Earth'', as well as growing American sympathy for China in its struggles with Japanese Imperialism, opened up opportunities for more positive Chinese roles in U.S. films. Wong returned to the U.S. in June 1935 with the goal of obtaining the role of O-lan, the lead female character in MGM's film version of ''The Good Earth''. Since its publication in 1931, Wong had made known her desire to play O-lan in a film version of the book; and as early as 1933, Los Angeles newspapers were touting Wong as the best choice for the part. Nevertheless, the studio apparently never seriously considered Wong for the role because Paul Muni, an actor of European descent, was to play O-lan's husband, Wang Lung. The Chinese government also advised the studio against casting Wong in the role. The Chinese advisor to MGM commented: "whenever she appears in a movie, the newspapers print her picture with the caption 'Anna May again loses face for China' ".

According to Wong, she was instead offered the part of Lotus, a deceitful song girl who helps to destroy the family and seduces the family's oldest son. Wong refused the role, telling MGM head of production Irving Thalberg, "If you let me play O-lan, I will be very glad. But you're asking me – with Chinese blood – to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters." The role Wong hoped for went to Luise Rainer, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. Wong's sister, Mary Liu Heung Wong, appeared in the film in the role of the Little Bride. MGM's refusal to consider Wong for this most high-profile of Chinese characters in U.S. film is remembered today as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s".

Tour of China

After the major disappointment of losing the role in ''The Good Earth'', Wong announced plans for a year-long tour of China, to visit her father and his family in Taishan. Wong's father had returned to his hometown in China with her younger brothers and sister in 1934. Aside from Mei Lanfang's offer to teach her, she wanted to learn more about the Chinese theater, and through English translations to better perform some Chinese plays before international audiences. She told the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' on her departure, "... for a year, I shall study the land of my fathers. Perhaps upon my arrival, I shall feel like an outsider. Perhaps instead, I shall find my past life assuming a dreamlike quality of unreality."

Embarking in January 1936, she chronicled her experiences in a series of articles printed in U.S. newspapers such as the ''New York Herald Tribune'', the ''Los Angeles Examiner'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', and ''Photoplay''. In a stopover in Tokyo on the way to Shanghai, local reporters, ever curious about her romantic life, asked if she had marriage plans, to which Wong replied, "No, I am wedded to my art." The following day, however, Japanese newspapers reported that Wong was married to a wealthy Cantonese man named Art.

During her travels in China, Wong continued to be strongly criticized by the Nationalist government and the film community. She had difficulty communicating in many areas of China because she was raised with the Taishan dialect rather than Standard Chinese. She later commented that some of the Chinese dialects sounded "as strange to me as Gaelic. I thus had the strange experience of talking to my own people through an interpreter."

The toll of international celebrity on Wong's personal life manifested itself in bouts of depression and sudden anger, as well as excessive smoking and drinking. Feeling irritable when she disembarked in Hong Kong, Wong was uncharacteristically rude to the awaiting crowd, which then quickly turned hostile. One person shouted: "Down with Huang Liu Tsong – the stooge that disgraces China. Don't let her go ashore." Wong began crying, and a stampede ensued. After she left for a short trip to the Philippines, the situation cooled and Wong joined her family in Hong Kong. With her father and her siblings, Wong visited his family and his first wife at the family's ancestral home near Taishan. Conflicting reports claim that she was either warmly welcomed or met with hostility by the villagers. She spent over 10 days in the family's village, and some time in neighboring villages before continuing her tour of China. After returning to Hollywood, Wong reflected on her year in China and her career in Hollywood: "I am convinced that I could never play in the Chinese Theatre. I have no feeling for it. It's a pretty sad situation to be rejected by Chinese because I'm 'too American' and by American producers because they prefer other races to act Chinese parts." Wong's father returned to Los Angeles in 1938.

Late 1930s

To complete her contract with Paramount Pictures, Wong made a string of B movies in the late 1930s. Often dismissed by critics, the films gave Wong non-stereotypical roles which were publicized in the Chinese-American press for their positive images. These smaller-budgeted films could be bolder than the higher-profile releases, and Wong used this to her advantage to portray successful, professional, Chinese-American characters. Competent and proud of their Chinese heritage, these roles worked against the prevailing U.S. film portrayals of Chinese-Americans. In contrast to the usual official Chinese condemnation of Wong's film roles, the Chinese consul to Los Angeles gave his approval to the final scripts of two of these films, ''Daughter of Shanghai'' (1937) and ''King of Chinatown'' (1939).

In ''Daughter of Shanghai'', Wong played the Asian-American female lead in a role that was rewritten for her as the heroine of the story, actively setting the plot into motion rather than the more passive character originally planned. The script was so carefully tailored for Wong that at one point it was titled, ''Anna May Wong Story''. Of this film, Wong told ''Hollywood Magazine'', "I like my part in this picture better than any I've had before ... because this picture gives Chinese a break – we have sympathetic parts for a change! To me that means a great deal." ''The New York Times'' gave the film a generally positive review, commenting of its B-movie origins, "An unusually competent cast saves the film from the worst consequences of certain inevitable banalities. [The cast] ... combine with effective sets to reduce the natural odds against any pictures in the ''Daughter of Shanghai'' tradition." In October 1937, the press carried rumors that Wong had plans to marry her male co-star in this film, childhood friend and Korean-American actor Philip Ahn. Wong replied, "It would be like marrying my brother."

Bosley Crowther was not so kind to ''Dangerous to Know'' (1938), which he called a "second-rate melodrama, hardly worthy of the talents of its generally capable cast". In ''King of Chinatown'' Wong played a surgeon who sacrifices a high-paying promotion in order to devote her energies to helping the Chinese fight the Japanese invasion. ''The New York Times''' Frank Nugent gave the film a negative review. Though he commented positively on its advocacy of the Chinese in their fight against Japan, he wrote, "... Paramount should have spared us and its cast ... the necessity of being bothered with such folderol".

Paramount also employed Wong as a tutor to other actors, such as Dorothy Lamour in her role as a Eurasian in ''Disputed Passage''. Wong performed on radio several times, including a 1939 role as "Peony" in Pearl Buck's ''The Patriot'' on Orson Welles' ''The Campbell Playhouse''. Wong's cabaret act, which included songs in Cantonese, French, English, German, Danish, Swedish, and other languages, took her from the U.S. to Europe and Australia through the 1930s and 1940s.

In 1938, having auctioned off her movie costumes and donated the money to Chinese aid, the Chinese Benevolent Association of California honored Wong for her work in support of Chinese refugees. The proceeds from the preface that she wrote in 1942 to a cookbook titled ''New Chinese Recipes'', one of the first Chinese cookbooks, were also dedicated to United China Relief. Between 1939 and 1942, she made few films, instead engaging in events and appearances in support of the Chinese struggle against Japan.

Later years

Wong starred in ''Lady from Chungking'' (1942) and ''Bombs over Burma'' (1943), both anti-Japanese propaganda made by the poverty row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. She donated her salary for both films to United China Relief. ''The Lady from Chungking'' differed from the usual Hollywood war film in that the Chinese were portrayed as heroes rather than as victims rescued by Americans. Even after American characters are captured by the Japanese, the primary goal of the heroes is not to free the Americans, but to prevent the Japanese from entering the city of Chongqing (Chungking). Also, in an interesting twist, the Chinese characters are portrayed by Chinese-American actors, while the Japanese villains – normally played by Chinese-American actors – are acted by European-Americans. The film ends with Wong making a speech for the birth of a "new China". ''The Hollywood Reporter'' and ''Variety'' both gave Wong's performance in ''The Lady from Chungking'' positive reviews, but commented negatively on the film's plot.

Later in life, Wong invested in real estate and owned a number of properties in Hollywood. She converted her home on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica into four apartments which she called "Moongate Apartments". She served as the apartment house manager from the late 1940s until 1956, when she moved in with her brother Richard on 21st Place in Santa Monica.

In 1949, Wong's father died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. After a six-year absence, Wong returned to film the same year with a small role in a B movie called ''Impact''. From August 27 to November 21, 1951, Wong starred in a detective series that was written specifically for her, the DuMont Television Network series ''The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong'', in which she played the title role which used her birth name. The ten half-hour episodes aired during prime time, from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. Although there were plans for a second season, DuMont canceled the show in 1952. No copies of the show or its scripts are known to exist. After the completion of the series, Wong's health began to deteriorate. In late 1953 she suffered an internal hemorrhage, which her brother attributed to the onset of menopause, her continued heavy drinking, and financial worries.

In 1956, Wong hosted one of the first U.S. documentaries on China narrated entirely by a Chinese-American. Broadcast on the ABC travel series ''Bold Journey'', the program consisted of film footage from her 1936 trip to China. Wong also did guest spots on television series such as ''Adventures in Paradise'', ''The Barbara Stanwyck Show'', and ''The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp''.

For her contribution to the film industry, Anna May Wong received a star at 1708 Vine Street on the inauguration of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. She is also depicted larger-than-life as one of the four supporting pillars of the "Gateway to Hollywood" sculpture located on the southeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, with the actresses Dolores del Rio (Hispanic American), Dorothy Dandridge (African American) and Mae West.

In 1960, Wong returned to film in ''Portrait in Black'', starring Lana Turner. She still found herself stereotyped, with one press release explaining her long absence from films with a supposed proverb, which was claimed to have been passed down to Wong by her father: "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul", a quote that would be inserted into many of her obituaries. On February 3, 1961, at the age of 56, Wong died of a heart attack at home in Santa Monica, two days after her final screen performance on the television show ''Danger Man''. Her cremated remains were interred in her mother's grave at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, frequently reported to be only marked by her mother's name on the tombstone. In 2008, a fan campaign started to raise funds to create and purchase a headstone for Wong.

Romances

In the early 1920s Wong had an affair with director Tod Browning. It was a romance largely unknown of at the time and highlighted by the fact that it was an interracial relationship and that Wong was underage.

Legacy

Wong's image and career have left a lasting legacy. Through her films, public appearances, and prominent magazine features, she helped to "humanize" Asian-Americans to white audiences during a period of overt racism and discrimination. Asian-Americans, especially the Chinese, had been viewed as perpetually foreign in U.S. society, but Wong's films and public image established her firmly as an Asian-American citizen at a time when laws specifically discriminated against Asian immigration and citizenship. Wong's hybrid image dispelled contemporary notions that the East and West were inherently different.

Among Wong's films, only ''Shanghai Express'' retained critical attention in the U.S. in the decades after her death. In Europe, and especially England, her films appeared occasionally at festivals. Wong remained popular with the gay community who often claimed her as one of their own, and for whom her marginalization by the mainstream became a symbol. Although the Chinese Nationalist criticism of her portrayals of the "Dragon Lady" and "Butterfly" stereotypes lingered, Wong herself was forgotten in China. Nevertheless, the importance of Wong's legacy within the Asian-American film community can be seen in the Anna May Wong Award of Excellence which is given out yearly at the Asian-American Arts Awards; the annual award given out by the Asian Fashion Designers was also named after Wong in 1973.

For decades following her death, Wong's image remained as a symbol in literature, as well as in film. In the 1971 poem "The Death of Anna May Wong", Jessica Hagedorn saw Wong's career as one of "tragic glamour", and portrayed the actress as a "fragile maternal presence, an Asian-American woman who managed to 'birth,' however ambivalently, Asian-American screen women in the jazz age". Wong's character in ''Shanghai Express'' was the subject of John Yau's 1989 poem "No One Ever Tried to Kiss Anna May Wong", which interprets the actress' career as a series of tragic romances. In David Cronenberg's 1993 film version of David Henry Hwang's 1986 play, ''M. Butterfly'', Wong's image was used briefly as a symbol of a "tragic diva". Her life was the subject of ''China Doll, The Imagined Life of an American Actress'', an award-winning fictional play written by Elizabeth Wong in 1995.

As the centennial of Wong's birth approached, a re-examination of her life and career took shape; three major works on the actress appeared, and comprehensive retrospectives of her films were held at both the Museum of Modern Art and the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Anthony Chan's 2003 biography, ''Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905–1961)'', was the first major work on Wong, and was written, Chan says, "from a uniquely Asian-American perspective and sensibility". In 2004, Philip Leibfried and Chei Mi Lane's exhaustive examination of Wong's career, ''Anna May Wong: A Complete Guide to Her Film, Stage, Radio and Television Work'' was published, as well as a second full-length biography, ''Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend'' by Graham Russell Hodges. Though Anna May Wong's life, career, and legacy reflect many complex issues which remain decades after her death, Anthony Chan points out that her place in Asian-American cinematic history, as its first female star, is permanent.

See also

Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood

Racism in Film of the United States

Stereotypes of East and Southeast Asians in American media

Selected filmography

(includes her television work)

''The Red Lantern'' (1919) debut – uncredited

''Bits of Life'' (1921)

''The Toll of the Sea'' (1922) as Lotus Flower

''The Thief of Bagdad'' (1924) as a Mongol Slave

''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1926) as Ohati

''Old San Francisco'' (1927)

''Piccadilly'' (1929) as Shosho

''Elstree Calling'' (1930) as Herself

''Daughter of the Dragon'' (1931) as Princess Ling Moy

''Shanghai Express'' (1932) as Hui Fei

''A Study in Scarlet'' (1933)

''Dangerous to Know'' (1938) as Lan Ying

''Island of Lost men'' (1939) as Kim Ling

''Lady from Chungking'' (1942) as Kwan Mei

''Bombs Over Burma'' (1943) as Lin Ying

''Impact'' (1949) as Su Lin

''Portrait in Black'' (1960) as Tawny

References

Notes

Bibliography of cited sources

Berry, Sarah. ''Screen Style: Fashion and Femininity in 1930s Hollywood''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. ISBN 0-81663-312-6.

Camhi, Leslie. "Film: A Dragon Lady and a Quiet Cultural Warrior". ''The New York Times'', January 11, 2004.

Chan, Anthony B. ''Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905–1961)''. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8108-4789-2.

Chung, Hye-seung. ''Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the Politics of Cross-ethnic Performance''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. ISBN 1-5921-3516-1.

Corliss, Richard. "Anna May Wong Did It Right." ''Time'', January 29, 2005. Retrieved: March 20, 2008.

Corliss, Richard. "That Old Feeling: Anna May Win." ''Time'', February 3, 2005. Retrieved: March 24, 2008.

Crisler, B.R. ''Daughter of Shanghai'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', December 24, 1937.

Crowther, Bosley. ''Dangerous to Know'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', March 11, 1938.

"Film reveals real-life struggles of an onscreen 'Dragon Lady'." ''UCLA Today Online'', January 3, 2008. Retrieved: May 27, 2008.

Finch, Christopher and Linda Rosenkrantz. ''Gone Hollywood: The Movie Colony in the Golden Age''. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979. ISBN 978-0-385-12808-7.

''Forty Winks'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', February 3, 1925.

Gan, Geraldine. "Anna May Wong." ''Lives of Notable Asian Americans: Arts, Entertainment, Sports''. New York: Chelsea House, 1995, pp. 83–91. ISBN 978-0-7910-2188-0.

Hodges, Graham Russell. ''Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend''. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 0-312-29319-4.

Hsu, Shirley. ""Nobody's Lotus Flower: Rediscovering Anna May Wong" Film Retrospective." Asia Pacific Arts Online Magazine. UCLA Asia Institute. January 23, 2004. Retrieved: May 12, 2008.

Leibfried, Philip and Chei Mi Lane. ''Anna May Wong: A Complete Guide to her Film, Stage, Radio and Television Work''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004. ISBN 0-7864-1633-5.

Leong, Karen J. ''The China Mystique: Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, Mayling Soong, and the Transformation of American Orientalism''. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005. ISBN 0-5202-4422-2.

Lim, Shirley Jennifer. "I Protest: Anna May Wong and the Performance of Modernity, (Chapter title)"''A Feeling of Belonging: Asian American Women's Public Culture, 1930–1960''. New York: New York University Press, 2005, pp. 104–175. ISBN 0-8147-5193-8.

Liu, Cynthia W. "When Dragon Ladies Die, Do They Come Back as Butterflies? Re-imagining Anna May Wong." ''Countervisions: Asian American Film Criticism''. Hamamoto, Darrel and Sandra Liu, (editors). Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000, pp. 23–39. ISBN 1-56639-776-6.

Motion, Andrew. ''The Lamberts: George, Constant and Kit''. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986. ISBN 0-37418-283-3.

Negra, Diane. ''Off-White Hollywood: American Culture and Ethnic Female Stardom''. London: Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0-415-21678-8.

Nugent, Frank. ''King of Chinatown'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', March 16, 1939.

Parish, James and William Leonard. "Anna May Wong." ''Hollywood Players: The Thirties''. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers, 1976, pp. 532–538. ISBN 0-87000-365-8.

''Performing Race on Screen''. cinema.cornell.edu. Retrieved: May 12, 2008.

''Piccadilly'' (film review). ''Variety'', July 24, 1929.

Rollins, Peter C., ed. ''The Columbia Companion to American History on Film: How the Movies Have Portrayed the American Past''. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-23111-223-8.

''Song'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', August 22, 1928.

Sweet, Matthew. "Snakes, Slaves and Seduction; Anna May Wong." ''The Guardian'', February 6, 2008. Retrieved: March 20, 2008.

''The Toll of the Sea'' (film review). ''The New York Times'', November 27, 1922.

''The Toll of the Sea'' (film review). ''Variety'', December 1, 1922.

Wang, Yiman and Catherine Russell, ed.. "The Art of Screen Passing: Anna May Wong's Yellow Yellowface Performance in the Art Deco Era." ''Camera Obscura 60: New Women of the Silent Screen: China, Japan, Hollywood''. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 159–191. ISBN 0-8223-6624-X.

Wollstein, Hans J. "Anna May Wong." ''Vixens, Floozies, and Molls: 28 Actresses of late 1920s and 1930s Hollywood''. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999. ISBN 0-7864-0565-1.

Wong, Elizabeth: ''China Doll, The Imagined Life of an American Actress''. Woodstock, Ill: Dramatic Publishing, 2005. ISBN 1-58342-315-X.

Wood, Ean. ''The Josephine Baker Story''. London: Sanctuary, 2000. ISBN 1-86074-286-6.

Zia, Helen and Susan B. Gall. ''Notable Asian Americans''. New York: Gale Research, 1995. ISBN 978-0-8103-9623-4.

Further reading

Doerr, Conrad. "Reminiscences of Anna May Wong." ''Films in Review.'' New York, December 1968. ISSN 015-1688.

Griffith, Richard and Richard Mayer. ''The Movies''. New York: Fireside, 1970. ISBN 0-60036-044-X.

Schneider, Steven Jay, ed. ''1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die''. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2005. ISBN 0-76415-907-0.

External links

The Anna May Wong Society

Time Magazine: 'The Career of Anna May Wong'

Anna May Wong Documentary Home

Anna May Wong Tobacco Cards at Virtual History

Category:1905 births Category:1961 deaths Category:American film actors Category:American silent film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American actors of Chinese descent Category:American actors of Asian descent Category:Actors from California Category:American people of Chinese descent Category:American Christian Scientists Category:Taishanese people Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction

br:Anna May Wong ca:Anna May Wong de:Anna May Wong es:Anna May Wong fr:Anna May Wong fy:Anna May Wong id:Anna May Wong it:Anna May Wong hu:Anna May Wong nl:Anna May Wong ja:アンナ・メイ・ウォン no:Anna May Wong pl:Anna May Wong pt:Anna May Wong ru:Анна Мэй Вонг sh:Anna May Wong fi:Anna May Wong zh:黄柳霜

Group	East and Southeast Asians in the United Kingdom
Poptime	Over. 1,000,0001.6% of the UK population Chinese - 400,000Filipino - 200,000Vietnamese - 55,000 Malaysian - 50,000Japanese - 50,000 Singaporean - 40,000 South Korean - 40,000 Thai - 36,000Burmese - 10,000Other East Asians - UnknownAll figures except the Chinese, Filipino and Thai communities are from the 2001 UK Census, with that country as a reported birthplace (i.e. doesn't include British born people of East Asian origin)
Popplace	London, Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh
Langs	British English, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, and many others
Rels	Buddhism, Christianity, East Asian religions, Islam, Non-religious, others
Related-c	Asians }}

East and Southeast Asians in the United Kingdom (also known as British East Asians and British Southeast Asians) are British citizens or full time residents of the United Kingdom who descended from East or Southeast Asia. They have been present in the country since the 17th century and primarily originate from countries and territories such as Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, the People's Republic of China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Singapore, Republic of China, Thailand and Vietnam. In British English, they are sometimes called "Oriental", since the term "Asian" is usually used for South Asians, although this term may be considered offensive. In the 2001 British census, the term Chinese or Other is used.

Population history

The 2001 UK Census recorded 9,924 Burmese-born people residing in the UK. The United Kingdom only had a small population of Filipinos until the late 20th century. The number started to grow in the 1970s when immigration restrictions on Commonwealth citizens meant that employers had to find workers from other countries.

The first settlement of Chinese people in the United Kingdom dates from the early 19th century. In particular were port cities such as Liverpool and London; particularly the Limehouse area in East London, where the first Chinatown was established in the UK and Europe. Today, most of the British Chinese are people or are descended from people who were themselves overseas Chinese when they entered the United Kingdom. The majority are from former British colonies, such as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Burma, Singapore, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and also other countries such as Vietnam. People from mainland China and Taiwan and their descendants constitute a relatively small proportion of the British Chinese community. Hong Kong people in the United Kingdom are people from Hong Kong resident in the United Kingdom, or British nationals of Hong Kong origin. At the time of the 2001 British census, 96,000 people born in Hong Kong were residing in the UK, while 2009 estimates suggest that 78,000 Hong Kong-born people are resident in the UK.

The first Japanese settled in the 1960s, mainly for business and economic purposes. In recent decades this number has been growing; including immigrants, students, and businessmen. Parts of the United Kingdom, in particular London, have significant Japanese populations; such as Golders Green and East Finchley North London. There are approximately 100,000 British Japanese, mostly settled in London and the surrounding South East, forming the largest Japanese community in Europe.

Large numbers of South Koreans began to settle in the U.K. in the 1980s, mostly near London; the highest concentration can be found in the town of New Malden, where estimates of the South Korean population range from 8,000 to as high as 20,000 people. There are also a few North Koreans; they form the ninth-largest national group of asylum seekers, with a total of 850 applicants, including 245 applications in the first seven months of the year alone, thirteen times the number in all of 2007.

Community

A 2010 study of 137 Burmese migrant subjects based on self-administered questionnaires found that while general practitioner registration among Burmese studied was at a relatively high proportion of 80 per cent, actual GP utilisation during last episode of illness measured only 56.8 per cent. Instead, subjects often preferred self-medication. Through in-depth interviews with 11 subjects, the authors concluded that reasons for this preference included language issues, long wait times, and the immigration status of the subject.

The National Health Service (NHS), hotel and catering industry and clothing manufacturers started to recruit Filipinos. According to the UK Department of Employment, 20,226 work permits were issued to Filipinos between 1968 and 1980. Some 47% of the work permits were issued for those who came to work in hospitals and welfare homes as hospital auxiliaries, catering workers and to nurse-trainees. The second biggest category of work permits were for chambermaids, followed by catering and waitering staff. The NHS started to recruit more Filipino nurses in the 1990s to make up a shortfall in local recruitment. A large number of Filipinos have also arrived as caregivers and work in public & private nursing homes.

Subgroups

East Asians

*Chinese

**List of British Chinese people

**Hong Kongers

*Japanese

*Koreans

*Mongolians

Southeast Asians

*Burmese

*Filipinos

*Malaysians

*Singaporeans

*Thais

*Vietnamese

See also

Asian American

Asian Canadian

Asian Australians

References

External links

BORN ABROAD, An Immigration Map of Britain, BBC News.

Category:Ethnic groups in the United Kingdom Category:Chinese community in the United Kingdom Category:British people of Asian descent