Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire
by Sonia Shah (ed.) Preface by Yuri Kochiyama, Foreword by Karin Aguilar-San JuanAVAILABILITY: Usually ships within 2-5 days
Publication Date: 1997
Publisher: South End Press
Binding: Paperback
Topics: Human Health & Welfare, Labor & Work / Classism, Love, Sex, Eros, Media, Population / Consumption, Race & Civil Rights, Sexism / Patriarchy, United States
Condition: Special Sale
Description: Winner of Honorable Mention from the Myers Center
Showcases the growing politicization of Asian American women and their emerging feminist movement. These prominent writers, artists, and activists draw on a wealth of personal experience and political analysis to address issues of immigration, work, health, domestic violence, sexuality, and the media. In doing so, they seize the power of their unique political perspectives and cultural backgrounds to transform the landscape of race, class, and gender in the United States.
Asian American feminism is a political hybrid linking very different cultures. "We all share the same rung on the racial hierarchy and on the gender hierarchy," asserts Sonia Shah, the editor of this appropriately diverse collection of writings. In it, Shamita Das Dasgupta and her daughter, Sayantani Das Dasgupta, comment on both raising and being third-world activists in the American Midwest, teetering outside the approved boundaries of largely white feminist groups and the Indian community. Margarita Alcantara, editor of the zine Bamboo Girl; Leslie Mah, lead guitarist of Tribe 8; and oxymoronic moderator Selena Whang explode model minority images with a freewheeling round robin on issues and events facing self-identified queer, punk Asians. Community activists Bandana Purkayastha, Shyamala Raman, and Kshiteeja Bhide expound on their agency SNEHA, which embodies the contradictions faced by Asian American feminists trying to empower women while respecting cultural traditions. 'Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire' is raw and powerful.
Review(s): "Groundbreaking....Dragon Ladies explores the emergence of a distinct Asian American feminist movement through the rich perspectives of well-known Asian American activists, writers, and artists who analyze personal experiences through a political lens." - Ms. Magazine
"[A]n inspiring and long-overdue antidote that allows Asian-American women to represent themselves - as fierce, competent, intelligent, and strong." - Hues