The Chinese Fred Astaire
Digitization has given us an opportunity that we’ve never had before--the need to go through each and every one of our approximately 22,000 Chinese Exclusion Act case files created by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) offices throughout southern California. In this process, we came across a file for a young man who told INS he needed to travel to Mexico City to dance in a Vaudeville engagement. He was booked through the William Meiklejohn Agency, he said.
And what a dancer he was! His given name was Jew Wing Dong, but he danced as Paul Wing. He was half of the duo Toy and Wing with Dorothy Takahashi (Toy). Toy and Wing were known as the Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and were a fabulously dynamic and athletic dance act. They danced in nightclubs in the United States, Mexico, Canada and Europe throughout the 1930s, and appeared in films as well, including Deviled Hams (1937) from which this dance footage was taken. The duo were the first Asian Americans to perform on Broadway in New York City and at the Palladium in London.
The couple continued to dance after World War II at nightclubs including the Forbidden City and the Chinese Sky Room in San Francisco. Paul Wing died at 85 in 1997.
For more information on the Chinese American nightclub scene, and about Toy and Wing, see the documentary, Forbidden City, USA: Chinese American Nightclubs, 1936-1970.
May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month.
Series: Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files, 1932-1935. Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1787-2004. (National Archives Identifier 5831054)