Due to the range of people and ideas covered under the banner of Asian and APIA feminism(s), I have not included a key text in this post but have instead done a more extensive list of people to kno…
Trinh Minh Ha – She brings a critical cinematic eye to post-colonial feminism and an intricate theoretical analysis that marks how even the most minute detail holds meaning.
Cynthia Tom – She is a feminist artists whose work addresses themes like: immigration, mothers and daughters, the self, female knowledge, sexuality, identity, and struggle. Her work reinterprets and often reinvents classical forms from both western and eastern traditions, and she also works in mixed media.
Yuri Kochiyama -She became an activist as a result of her experience of Japanese internment in her 20s, where her father died after extensive torture and lack of medical treatment.
Gayatri Gopinath – She is Assitant Professor in Women’s Studies at UC Davis where she works on feminist theory, queer theory, popular culture and the Asian Diaspora
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai – She is a passionate poet who addresses issues of gender, race, social justice, nation-building, and hypocrisy on the left.
Kieu Linh Valverde – California based activist and artist. She works with EMpower – a Vietnamese Girls Leadership Program and the Association of Viet Arts.
Rinku Sen – She is a long time activist for gender equity, racial and social justice, and human rights. She is currently the Executive Director of the Applied Research Center and publisher of Color Lines.
Grace Lee Boggs – She is a long time activist for women’s rights, racial justice, peace and labor activist, and environmental justice worker.
Mitsuye Yamada – She is a prolific writer and critique whose political identity was crafted in the legacy of Japanese Internment, which included her families internment when she was 18 and the expulsion of her brother from college when she was 20 by the U.S. Air Force.
Merle Woo -She is a radical feminist lesbian of color and academic. Her creative work includes poetry and participation in the Asian American feminist performance group Unbound Feet, both of which allowed her to talk about gender, sexuality, and ethnic identity.
Maxine Hong Kingston – A prolific writer, Kingston was one of the first people Asian women writers to break into the modern canon. Her books were not only taught in Women’s Studies and literature courses but were also best sellers.
Helen Zia – She is a long time feminist, civil rights, and queer rights activist. She was among the first women journalists to graduate from Princeton.
Sabrina Margarita Alcantara-Tan – She is the author of the feminist zine Bamboo Girl. She started the zine in 1995 to fill a gap in the depiction of asian feminist queer positive identities in the zine world.
Julian Pegues/Pei Lu Fung – She is a lesbian feminist poet, playwrite, and actress whose work explores gender, sexuality, race, immigration, and identity in general. She is a member of Mango Tribe, a national API women’s performance collective and has starred in her own one-woman shows entitled: Made in Taiwan, Fifteen, and First the Forest
Peggy Myo Young Choy – She is an acclaimed dancer who uses the art to comment on gender, race, and nation. In speaking about her art she said the following: she re-environs and re-embodies the history and cultural politics of what it means to be an Asian woman in America.
Stacy Ann Chin – Recently moved from Jamaica to NYC (and therefore counts for this list). She is a lesbian feminist poet and performer who has spoken out about women’s rights, queer rights, and racism.
Noemi Sohn – She is a feminist who addresses disability activism, racial and gender justice, and a long standing fight against violence against women. She does activist trainings on Rape and Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Disability Rights, Race and Racism, and sexism and tries to explore the parallels and intersections of all of these themes as much as possible.
