Chong, Charlie. Charlie Chong was created by James Perley Hughes and appeared in at least three stories in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1925 and 1926, possibly beginning with “Charlie Chong and the Perfect Way” (Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 4, 1925). Charlie Chong is the Chinese-American “editor, advertising manager and general factotum of the Chung Mei Bo, Chinatown’s most progressive newspaper.” He is a clever, skinny man, entirely un-stereotypical, who does things like starting and managing Chinatown’s first beauty contest as a charity contest for Chinatown’s new hospital. He is aided in his schemes by the lovely Tze Chan, Chong’s girlfriend and the daughter of the newspaper’s publisher.
I’ve included Charlie Chong in my encyclopedia, and have posted him here, not for the plot of the stories (which are fairly straightforward and of ordinary quality for the better pulps), but because he’s a good example of the kind of POC character who appeared as protagonists in the better pulps (i.e., not the mediocrities like the science fiction pulps, but the better-paying, better-edited, and just plain better pulps like Argosy and Blue Book). No stereotypes involved, no pidgin English or opium or Yellow Peril villains or anything like that–just ordinary characters who happen to be POC having entertaining adventures.
Characters like Charlie Chong are why I repeatedly point to the pulps (despite their many flaws) as being superior, over-all, in terms of race and ethnicity, to mainstream media of the day. Go ahead and search for a Charlie Chong character in the slick magazines, or movies or radio. You won’t find them. Yes, the pulps had an embarrassing number of stereotypical POC characters, but it also had Charlie Chongs, which is more than the non-pulps can say.