Asian Women Memoir

In Our Brave Foremothers, discover an intergenerational, intercultural bouquet of Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women lifted into the significance that they deserve. From Etel Adnan to Mary Jones, Thelma Garcia Buchholdt to Pura Belpré to Zitkála-Šá, here are 100 women of color who left a lasting mark on United States history. Including both famous and little-known names, the thoughtful profiles and detailed portraits of these women herald their achievements and passions.

Pioneering Chinese American actress Anna May Wong made more than 60 films, headlined theater and vaudeville productions, and even starred in her own television show. Her work helped shape racial modernity, as she embodied the dominant image of Chinese, and more generally, “Oriental” women between 1925 and 1940. In Anna May Wong, Shirley Jennifer Lim re-evaluates Wong’s life and work as a consummate artist, and positions the actress as a historical and cultural entrepreneur who rewrote categories of representation.

A journey back in time, The Golden Mountain is the gripping tale of four generations of Chinese women who live and die under the restrictions of their culture, except for one, the author. Her story tells of growing up in Hong Kong and of her transition to New York City where she struggled to meld the American dream with her ethnic background. Finally, at age 50, she dares to move into the present and understand the true nature of dreams and what it means to live.

Forced Out: A Nikkei Woman’s Search for a Home in America offers insight into “voluntary evacuation,” a little-known Japanese American experience during World War II, and the lasting effects of cultural trauma. Of the roughly 120,000 people forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066, around 5,000 were able to escape incarceration beforehand by fleeing inland.