Our Voices, Our Histories

An innovative anthology showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories Our Voices, Our Histories brings together thirty-five Asian American and Pacific Islander authors in a single volume to explore the historical experiences, perspectives, and actions of Asian American and Pacific Islander women in the United States and beyond. This volume is unique in exploring Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s lives along local, transnational, and global dimensions. The contributions present new research on diverse aspects of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s history, from the politics of language, to the role of food, to experiences as adoptees, mixed race, and second generation, while acknowledging shared experiences as women of color in the United States. Our Voices, Our Histories showcases how new approaches in US history, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and Women’s and Gender studies inform research on Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Attending to the collective voices of the women themselves, the volume seeks to transform current understandings of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories.

Carrying the thread of women’s agency throughout, this anthology encompasses struggles and triumphs around social, cultural, and civic citizenship, expanding outward from the US context to incorporate analyses of how gender is always already intersectional and intertwined with globalization, transnationalism, and empire-building in the Asian American and Pacific Islander context. . . . A welcome addition., A field-defining work, charting the past, present, and future of Asian American women’s history., This immersive anthology begins to address gaps and transform understanding in history and literature by, for and about Asian American and Pacific Islander women.

Shirley Hune is Professor Emerita of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington and Professor Emerita of Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gail M. Nomura is Associate Professor Emerita of American Ethnic Studies, University of Washington. Her publications include co-editor of Asian/ Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology (NYU Press, 2003) and Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century (University of Washington Press, 2005). She is a founding member and past president of the Association for Asian American Studies.