Judy Tzu-Chun Wu - Böcker

Illuminates a transformational event in the development of Asian American and Pacific Islander feminismsIn November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women’s Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women’s agenda. In Moving Mountains, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Adrienne Winans center the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women’s rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state.Foregrounding figures like Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink and poet Mitsuye Yamada, Wu and Winans position AA and PI women as central actors in the era’s feminist politics, engaging with, and at times resisting, state institutions to forge paths toward racial and gender justice. From Guam to New York, the women articulated intersecting demands—for inclusion, sovereignty, labor rights, and education reform—at a moment when conservative backlash and racial realignment were reframing feminist movements. More than a recovery of voices, this book offers a layered analysis of coalition and tension between Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms, complicating assumptions of unity and illustrating how feminist praxis evolved through disagreement, difference, and shared commitment. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in feminist history, Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, and the unfinished work of collective liberation.

Illuminates a transformational event in the development of Asian American and Pacific Islander feminismsIn November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women’s Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women’s agenda. In Moving Mountains, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Adrienne Winans center the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women’s rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state.Foregrounding figures like Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink and poet Mitsuye Yamada, Wu and Winans position AA and PI women as central actors in the era’s feminist politics, engaging with, and at times resisting, state institutions to forge paths toward racial and gender justice. From Guam to New York, the women articulated intersecting demands—for inclusion, sovereignty, labor rights, and education reform—at a moment when conservative backlash and racial realignment were reframing feminist movements. More than a recovery of voices, this book offers a layered analysis of coalition and tension between Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms, complicating assumptions of unity and illustrating how feminist praxis evolved through disagreement, difference, and shared commitment. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in feminist history, Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, and the unfinished work of collective liberation.

Unequal Sisters has become a beloved and classic reader, providing an unparalleled resource for understanding women’s history in the United States today. First published in 1990, the book revolutionized the field with its broad multicultural approach, emphasizing feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, region, and sexuality, and covering the colonial period to the present day. Now in its fifth edition, the book presents an even wider variety of women’s experiences. This new edition explores the connections between the past and the present and highlights the analysis of queerness, transgender identity, disability, the rise of the carceral state, and the bureaucratization and militarization of migration. There is also more coverage of Indigenous and Pacific Islander women. The book is structured around thematic clusters: conceptual/methodological approaches to women’s history; bodies, sexuality, and kinship; and agency and activism.This classic work has incorporated the feedback of educators in the field to make it the most user-friendly version to date and will be of interest to students and scholars of women’s history, gender and sexuality studies, and the history of race and ethnicity.

Unequal Sisters has become a beloved and classic reader, providing an unparalleled resource for understanding women’s history in the United States today. First published in 1990, the book revolutionized the field with its broad multicultural approach, emphasizing feminist perspectives on race, ethnicity, region, and sexuality, and covering the colonial period to the present day. Now in its fifth edition, the book presents an even wider variety of women’s experiences. This new edition explores the connections between the past and the present and highlights the analysis of queerness, transgender identity, disability, the rise of the carceral state, and the bureaucratization and militarization of migration. There is also more coverage of Indigenous and Pacific Islander women. The book is structured around thematic clusters: conceptual/methodological approaches to women’s history; bodies, sexuality, and kinship; and agency and activism.This classic work has incorporated the feedback of educators in the field to make it the most user-friendly version to date and will be of interest to students and scholars of women’s history, gender and sexuality studies, and the history of race and ethnicity.

During World War II, Mom Chung's was the place to be in San Francisco. Soldiers, movie stars, and politicians gathered at her home to socialize, to show their dedication to the Allied cause, and to express their affection for Dr. Margaret Chung (1889-1959). The first known American-born Chinese female physician, Chung established one of the first Western medical clinics in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1920s. She also became a prominent celebrity and behind-the-scenes political broker during World War II. Chung gained national fame when she began 'adopting' thousands of soldiers, sailors, and flyboys, including Ronald Reagan, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. A pioneer in both professional and political realms, Chung experimented in her personal life as well. She adopted masculine dress and had romantic relationships with other women, such as writer Elsa Gidlow and entertainer Sophie Tucker. This is the first biography to explore Margaret Chung's remarkable and complex life. It brings alive the bohemian and queer social milieus of Hollywood and San Francisco as well as the wartime celebrity community Chung cultivated.Her life affords a rare glimpse into the possibilities of traversing racial, gender, and sexual boundaries of American society from the late Victorian era through the early Cold War period.

Traveling to Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam was a long and dangerous undertaking. Even though a neutral commission operated the flights, the possibility of being shot down by bombers in the air and antiaircraft guns on the ground was very real. American travelers recalled landing in blackout conditions, without lights even for the runway, and upon their arrival seeking refuge immediately in bomb shelters. Despite these dangers, they felt compelled to journey to a land at war with their own country, believing that these efforts could change the political imaginaries of other members of the American citizenry and even alter U.S. policies in Southeast Asia. In Radicals on the Road, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu tells the story of international journeys made by significant yet underrecognized historical figures such as African American leaders Robert Browne, Eldridge Cleaver, and Elaine Brown; Asian American radicals Alex Hing and Pat Sumi; Chicana activist Betita Martinez; as well as women's peace and liberation advocates Cora Weiss and Charlotte Bunch. These men and women of varying ages, races, sexual identities, class backgrounds, and religious faiths held diverse political views. Nevertheless, they all believed that the U.S. war in Vietnam was immoral and unjustified. In times of military conflict, heightened nationalism is the norm. Powerful institutions, like the government and the media, work together to promote a culture of hyperpatriotism. Some Americans, though, questioned their expected obligations and instead imagined themselves as "internationalists," as members of communities that transcended national boundaries. Their Asian political collaborators, who included Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government Nguyen Thi Binh and the Vietnam Women's Union, cultivated relationships with U.S. travelers. These partners from the East and the West worked together to foster what Wu describes as a politically radical orientalist sensibility. By focusing on the travels of individuals who saw themselves as part of an international community of antiwar activists, Wu analyzes how actual interactions among people from several nations inspired transnational identities and multiracial coalitions and challenged the political commitments and personal relationships of individual activists.

Traveling to Hanoi during the U.S. war in Vietnam was a long and dangerous undertaking. Even though a neutral commission operated the flights, the possibility of being shot down by bombers in the air and antiaircraft guns on the ground was very real. American travelers recalled landing in blackout conditions, without lights even for the runway, and upon their arrival seeking refuge immediately in bomb shelters. Despite these dangers, they felt compelled to journey to a land at war with their own country, believing that these efforts could change the political imaginaries of other members of the American citizenry and even alter U.S. policies in Southeast Asia. In Radicals on the Road, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu tells the story of international journeys made by significant yet underrecognized historical figures such as African American leaders Robert Browne, Eldridge Cleaver, and Elaine Brown; Asian American radicals Alex Hing and Pat Sumi; Chicana activist Betita Martinez; as well as women's peace and liberation advocates Cora Weiss and Charlotte Bunch. These men and women of varying ages, races, sexual identities, class backgrounds, and religious faiths held diverse political views. Nevertheless, they all believed that the U.S. war in Vietnam was immoral and unjustified. In times of military conflict, heightened nationalism is the norm. Powerful institutions, like the government and the media, work together to promote a culture of hyperpatriotism. Some Americans, though, questioned their expected obligations and instead imagined themselves as "internationalists," as members of communities that transcended national boundaries. Their Asian political collaborators, who included Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government Nguyen Thi Binh and the Vietnam Women's Union, cultivated relationships with U.S. travelers. These partners from the East and the West worked together to foster what Wu describes as a politically radical orientalist sensibility. By focusing on the travels of individuals who saw themselves as part of an international community of antiwar activists, Wu analyzes how actual interactions among people from several nations inspired transnational identities and multiracial coalitions and challenged the political commitments and personal relationships of individual activists.