Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship

A fellowship in social justice and Asian American Studies for students at the Claremont Colleges.

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Margo is committed to cultivating and empowering individuals to name and implement our radical feminist praxis as social change agents. With humor, kindness, vision, and critical analyses, she always invites me to stretch farther in my role in transforming myself, communities, and society to be more just, compassionate, and equitable.

Kathleen S. Yep, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Asian American Studies, Pitzer College

Affiliated: Sociology

Chair, Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies (IDAAS), Claremont Colleges

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Recipients of the 2011 Margo Okazawa-Rey Fellowship report the results of their summer projects. Pictured here are fellowship recipients (L to R) Evyn Espiritu, Samuel Pang, and Alda Caan, and (far right) Margo Okazawa-Rey. 

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Challenging Militarism: Feminist Activism and Scholarship

This roundtable discussion and public debate features international activists and scholars from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Korea, and the US in discussion with the

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A flyer urging Claremont Colleges students apply for this past year's fellowship awards. 

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Margo Okazawa-Rey ePortfolio. Powered By Epsilen

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Margo Okazawa-Rey and Gwyn Kirk write about militarism for Social Justice magazine, 2000.

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Some of Margo Okazawa-Rey's writing is featured in issue 10 of Feminist Africa, the Militarism, Conflict, and Women's Activism issue, including an editorial on militarism and women's activism and a review of "If I Were Given the Choice": Palestinian Women's Stories of Daily Life During the Years 2000-2003 of the Second Intifada. Additionally, in this issue she interviews two other activists, Ruth Ojiambo Ochieng and Yasmin Jusu-Sheriff. 

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About the Projects: Malaysia, Food, Immigration - Samuel Pang

My Margo Okazawa-Rey fellowship focused examining cooking a political act of self-determination through oral histories with my maternal grandmother.  When thinking of what defines a culture, one of the first things to come up is food.  Important histories and traditions are carefully passed down from one generation to another through food; recipes can mark important events and the taste of a delicious meal becomes a long-lasting memory, pushing others to recreate it.  Through food we can share not only stories but also important lessons, values, and morals.  Food is also universal; put simply, everyone needs to eat, making it an ideal tool to learn and teach others.  We all have food stories that are inseparable from our own histories.

  I have always lived with my maternal grandmother, and since the time when I could barely look over my kitchen counter top, she has been teaching me how to cook.  Before she moved to the United States, my grandmother owned her own restaurant in Malaysia and was known throughout the country for her amazing food.  Whenever we cooked together, she always told me awesome stories about her days in Malaysia, with many of them focusing around her restaurant. Cooking has been something she has kept alive even in the U.S.; for her, it has been not only a necessity to keep our family alive, but also something to keep her busy and escape the constantly mounting pressure to assimilate.

In the project, I explored the idea of cooking as self-determination and a political act, not only in resistance to the dominant culture’s pressure to assimilate, but also as an important epistemological tool to help maintain cultural knowledge, identity, and sense of self through the sharing of histories and stories between peoples and generations. In my relationship with my grandma, we have shared some of our most important moments over cooking and food.  Through the project, we explored her food story, learning how important events shaped her cooking; from World War II to opening her restaurant and her forced migration to the U.S., I learned a lot about how and why she has kept cooking alive and so close to her.  In the process, I also learned a lot about myself and what was most important to me, my family.  It was an amazing experience and has shaped how I approach my community work to this day.

- Samuel Pang

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About the Fellowship Recipients: Samuel Pang

Samuel Pang is a native of New York City, born and raised to a family of immigrants originally hailing from Malaysia.  In May 2012, he graduated from Pomona College with a degree in Asian American Studies.  While on-campus he was heavily involved with Asian American and progressive organizations.  After graduating, he joined Public Allies and worked at the Kheprw Institute, a community-empowerment center in Indianapolis, teaching and mentoring youth about social entrepreneurship, and environmental and food justice.  In January, he will be starting a Fulbright ETA grant in Malaysia.  He has strong passions for both food and education, and strives to find new and creative ways to bring them together.  When he is not stirring things up, you can often find him cooking something delicious, reading provocative books, taking weird photographs, biking, or just being silly.  Eventually, when he grows up, if ever, he wants to be an elementary school teacher.

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Women's Lives

This interdisciplinary, multicultural text-reader provides an introduction to women's studies by examining U.S. women's lives in a global context and across categories of race-ethnicity, class, sexuality, disability, and age. Substantial chapter introductions provide updated statistical information and explanations of key concepts and ideas as a context for the readings. Each chapter includes "Questions to Frame Your Reading" and "Suggestions for Taking Action" to help students link their knowledge and understanding to their own lives and to apply it to the world around them.

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Women's Lives, Multicultural Perspectives

Information about Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives, the book coauthored by Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, via Goodreads.com.

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Background information about Margo Okazawa-Rey, as featured on the IDAAS website. 

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About the Margo Okazawa-Rey Summer Fellowship -- via IDAAS.

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How to apply to the Margo Okazawa-Rey Fellowship, via IDAAS.

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Posts about STEP written by AARC -- Pomona College's Asian American Resource Center