Shirley Hune - Asian/Pacific Islander American Women

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Asian/Pacific Islander American Women

EDITED BY
Shirley Hune and Gail M. Nomura

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London

2003 by New York University

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Asian / Pacific Islander American women : a historical anthology
/ edited by Shirley Hune and Gail M. Nomura.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8147-3632-7 (acid-free paper)

ISBN 0-8147-3633-5 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

1. Asian American womenHistory. 2. Pacific Islander American
womenHistory. 3. Asian American womenSocial conditions.
4. Pacific Islander American womenSocial conditions. 5. United
StatesEthnic relations. I. Hune, Shirley. II. Nomura, Gail M.
E184.O6A855 2003
973.0495082dc21 2003002436

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In loving memory of my parents,
Don Hune and Jacqueline Gar Yin Hune, and
for the Hune, Chan, and Singham families
S.H.

For my mother, Leatrice Sakayo Nomura,
and my daughter, Emi Fumiyo Nomura Sumida
G.M.N.

This anthology marks an important stage not only in the study of Asian American and Pacific Islander American womens history but also in the development of collaborative efforts among scholars who share this interest. We are grateful to all who expressed interest and support for this anthology. We particularly thank our authors for their valuable research and contribution to this book and to the field of womens history. We thank Jesianne Asagi for contributing her assemblage, Personal Effects, for the cover design. We gratefully acknowledge the anonymous reviewers who provided helpful comments and critiques. Thanks are due to our students who have inspired us to compile this anthology and whose questions have shaped our thinking on the subject. We are also grateful for the support of the Graduate Division at the University of California, Los Angeles and the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington, our colleagues, and staff. We thank both Ellen Palms and Kenyon S. Chan for their assistance with the many computer program issues that came up and Rosie Baldonado for her general support. Our special thanks go to Jennifer Hammer, editor, New York University Press, for her commitment to this project and for guidance, encouragement, support, and patience in the long process, and to Emily Park of NYU Press for her professionalism and skill. We are also very appreciative of the design and production staff at NYU Press. Finally, we especially thank Kenyon S. Chan, Sparky, Stephen H. Sumida, Emi Nomura Sumida, Maya, and Chibi for their loving support and neverending patience.

There is a great need for an anthology of recent scholarship on Asian/Pacific Islander American womens history that both centers women and reinterprets their lives through our eyesthe viewpoints of the participants themselves and the critical perspectives of scholars of womens history. In this book, we reframe history about Asian/Pacific Islander American women by considering them as historical agents actively engaged in determining their lives and those of their families, communities, and larger entities, albeit within multiple and complex constraints. As such, Asian/Pacific Islander American Women recognizes the simultaneity of oppression and resistance as a qualitative difference in the lives of women of color.

This anthology goes beyond simply contesting male-centered or other privileged analyses of womens lives to present new knowledge and fresh perspectives for both teaching and advancing research. Its purpose is twofold. We are concerned about the absence of curriculum materials on the history of Asian/Pacific Islander American women. Collections of literary writings, criticisms, and contemporary studies are available, but anthologies devoted to historical studies are woefully lacking. Furthermore, much of the new research on Asian/Pacific Islander American womens history remains inaccessible to the classroom, being scattered in monographs, book chapters, journal articles, and unpublished dissertations. This book can serve as a major text in Asian/Pacific Islander American womens courses and as an additional resource in Asian American and Asian/Pacific American Studies, Womens Studies, Ethnic Studies, American Studies, and U.S. history courses.

We also seek to advance research and scholarship by bringing together in one volume some of the best new works in Asian/Pacific Islander American womens history. We have been excited by research that focuses on the womens lives and viewpoints and that gives them voice. Such an approach transforms epistemologywhat we know and how we know itand how we do history. Fresh perspectives, innovative methodologies, and newfound and underutilized sources are contributing original findings and alternative interpretations about Asian/Pacific Islander American women. To better understand how this anthology both is innovative and fills a gap, I briefly assess the current limitations and the common approaches to teaching and scholarly writing on their history to date.

What do we know about Asian/Pacific Islander American women in history? How do we know what we know about them? And in what ways did our knowledge about their lives, aspirations, choices, and contributions change over the last three decades of the twentieth century? Since the early 1970s, new interdisciplinary fields of study have challenged the omission, invisibility, and misrepresentation of women and of racial and ethnic minority groups in all disciplines, especially history. Asian American Studies, for example, has sought to recover and reclaim Asian Americans, and to a lesser extent Pacific Islander Americans, from the margins of history and to envision a new history of their presence, goals, and activities in the United States and other homelands. Similarly, Womens Studies has sought to transform historical knowledge and practice by centering womens viewpoints and experiences. Both fields have questioned traditional interpretations and methodologies; promoted alternative approaches, such as oral history; identified additional and often undervalued sources, including personal journals and community newspapers; and encouraged new research topics. They also have embedded their analyses in structures of power and linked historical inquiry to social change. In short, epistemological concerns have been and continue to be central issues of Asian/Pacific American Studies and Womens Studies.