Jade Snow Wong (January 21, 1922 – March 16, 2006) was a Chinese American ceramic artist and author of two memoirs. She was given the English name of Constance, also being known as Connie Wong Ong.

Early life

Wong was born on January 21, 1922, and raised in San Francisco; she was the fifth daughter of an immigrant family from Guangdong, China, which grew to have nine children. She was raised with the traditional beliefs and customs of Chinese culture which her family and her elders imposed upon her. Wong first attended San Francisco Junior College, and later Mills College, where she majored in economics and sociology in the hopes of becoming a social worker in Chinatown. Wong graduated from Mills College in 1942 with a Phi Beta Kappa key. While at Mills, she discovered a talent for ceramics in a summer course and joined a Ceramics Guild associated with the college. Wong also worked as a secretary during World War II.

Artistic work

Wong's career in pottery took off after she convinced a merchant on Grant Avenue in Chinatown, San Francisco, to allow her to put her workshop in his store window. Artist Win Ng (1936–1991) had studied under Wong when he was a teenager. Her ceramics were later displayed in art museums across the United States, including a 2002 exhibition at the Chinese Historical Society of America. They were also displayed at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago (a one-woman show), the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Cincinnati Art Museum, as well as shows in Omaha, Nebraska, and Portland, Oregon. In addition to these shows across the United States, Wong's ceramics have also been placed in the permanent collections of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Oakland Museum of California, the Joslyn Art Museum, and the International Ceramic Museum in Italy.

Literary work

In 1950, Wong published the first of her two autobiographical volumes, Fifth Chinese Daughter. The book described her troubles balancing her identity as an Asian American woman and her Chinese traditions. The book was translated into several Asian languages by the U.S. State Department, which sent her on a four-month speaking tour of Asia in 1953. "I was sent," Wong wrote, "because those Asian audiences who had read translations of Fifth Chinese Daughter did not believe a female born to poor Chinese immigrants could gain a toehold among prejudiced Americans." Her second volume, No Chinese Stranger, was published in 1975. The book described her trip across Asia during her speaking tour and her visits to the People’s Republic of China.

Personal life

Wong married the artist Woodrow Ong in 1950; they worked together on their art and later managed a travel agency together. Throughout her lifetime, Wong worked with many organizations including the San Francisco Public Library, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Chinese Cultural Center, the Chinese Historical Society of America, and Mills College. Wong was recognized and awarded by Mills College with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Arts in 1976. Wong died on March 16, 2006, at the age of 84 of cancer; she was survived by her two daughters, two sons, and four grandchildren.

Diplomatic life

As mentioned above in "Literary Work", during the Cold War Period of the 1950s, Wong was chosen as to go on a diplomatic tour ("good will mission") in Asia to exemplify the cultural and racial diversity of the U.S. democracy. The U.S. government chose her in part because she exemplified both Chinese and American values that would appeal to the overseas public, and had achieved the pinnacle of success in her career in the eyes of Americans. She attended under the Leaders' and Specialists' Exchange Program, created under the Smith-Mundt Act. She went in January 1953 for four months to visit Asian countries like Japan, Malaya, Thailand, and more.

In popular culture

In 1976, PBS made a half-hour special for public television based on Wong’s first volume Fifth Chinese Daughter, called Jade Snow, in which she was played by actress Freda Foh Shen.

Critical studies