Writer: Siena Iwasaki Milbauer
Happy Women’s History Month! We at AAOP want to take this time to celebrate all the incredible past, present, and future Asian American women. We wish to encourage everyone to additionally use this month as a time to honor folks who do not identify as women, but who have lived experiences of misogyny, for their contributions to the slow journey towards gender equality that we reflect upon during Women’s History Month.
We also want to examine the true meaning of the word “history”. History isn’t just about things that happened years ago, what you read about in textbooks and stare at in old photographs. History is something that we are making as individuals and communities, every single day.
Our personal histories are just as important as the epic global tales we typically think of as history-worthy. This is especially true for a community like our Asian community. Too often, we have been historically marginalized and dehumanized, left out of or misrepresented in mainstream histories and cultural narratives. Telling our life stories in our own voices is one impactful way to push back against erasure, generalization, and prejudiced stereotypes.
With that in mind, we at AAOP are choosing to honor Women’s History Month by spending March uplifting the powerful personal histories of 8 Asian American women. By sharing their stories through their own words and art, these folks are forcefully demanding to be seen, respected, and valued. They are telling history and they are making history.
We’ll be highlighting these 8 impactful memoirs, one at a time, on our Instagram. Stay tuned there, and here on our website, for that and more content celebrating Women’s History Month!
Sources:
Frankel, Alexis, “47 Books by Female Authors of Asian Descent You Need to Read Now”, Subvrt Magazine, 19 Sept. 2020. https://www.subvrtmag.com/47-books-by-female-authors-of-asian-descent-you-need-to-read-now/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
Hennepin County Library (pylduck), “Asian American Literature and Arts in Minnesota”, Hennepin County Library. https://hclib.bibliocommons.com/list/share/637909950/691437419. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
Kai-Hwa Wang, Francis, “Six Asian-American Memoirs to Read for Women’s History Month”, NBC Asian America, 8 Mar. 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/six-asian-american-memoirs-read-women-s-history-month-n730621. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
Kai-Hwa Wang, Francis, “12 nonfiction books to read for Asian Paicific American Heritage Month”, NBC Asian America, 1 May 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/asian-pacific-american-heritage-month-reading-list-nonfiction-n998291. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
Oh, Andrea, “17 Books by Queer Asian American Writers”, Electric Literature, 2 May 2019. https://electricliterature.com/17-books-by-queer-asian-american-writers/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.
Warren, Lydia, “12 must-read books for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month”, Insider, 21 Apr. 2020. https://www.insider.com/best-books-asian-pacific-american-heritage-authors-2020-4. Accessed 24 Feb. 2021.