A guest post by Kristina Wong, one of the authors of Auntie Kristina's Guide to Asian American Activism
We wrote Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism in response to the stereotype that Asian Americans were the “good, quiet immigrants” sitting on the sidelines of social justice movements, quietly reaping the benefits of Black and brown activists had fought for. We knew there were dozens of under-historized Asian American activists in our community who had walked alongside more widely known activists, and we wanted to commit them to book form to show young middle-grade readers that Asian American activists have been here for generations.
The last few days of API Heritage Month are slipping out from under us, but it’s never too late to uplift the incredible Asian Americans who have done so much for social justice. Our book offers dozens of profiles of “Auntie Heroes” and “Young Rebels” whose contributions have changed what freedom looks like for generations of Asian Americans. It also offers strategies for community building and resilience, showing that activism is more than just screaming in the street with signs.
Let’s celebrate four “hidden figure” Asian American activists who have changed the game, who also show up in our book:
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee
Mabel Ping-Hua Lee is so OG that even many hardcore Asian American activists don’t know about her. In 1905, Mabel was nine years old when she and her family left Guangzhou, China, and made New York City their home. This was before American women had the right to vote. Several years later, white suffragettes in New York invited Mabel and her mother to meet with them and discuss the international implications of the 1911 Chinese revolution, which prompted women in China to seek equal rights. As a teenager, Mabel began to fight for American women’s right to vote, even though the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented her from becoming a US citizen.
In the spring of 1912, sixteen-year-old Mabel led a women’s suffrage parade, riding her white horse adorned with the green, purple, and white ribbons of the Woman’s Political Union. The New York Times described her as “the symbol of the new era, when all women will be free and unhampered.” In 2018, a post office in New York City’s Chinatown was renamed the Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office. Isn’t it cool to imagine that when women voters drop off their mail-in ballots there, they have Mabel to thank for it?!
Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga
In the 1970s, Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga, a Nisei, or second-generation Japanese American, was a housewife in her fifties. Her husband would drop her off at the National Archives in Washington, DC, where she’d spend fifty to sixty hours a week looking through the stacks.
Aiko was driven to find important documents that could bring justice to members of the Japanese American community who had been incarcerated in concentration camps during World War II. And she did! In 1981, after years of searching, Aiko found a document that proved that the US government had lied to justify incarcerating more than 130,000 Japanese Americans.
Thanks to Aiko’s hard work and dedication, the United States government officially apologized to Japanese Americans and offered each former inmate $20,000 in redress. This compensation was nothing compared to the intensely traumatic experience of being dispossessed of all belongings and wrongfully imprisoned for years by one’s own government. It was, however, a huge victory for Japanese Americans. Aiko’s work also set a precedent that justice is possible, even when the perpetrator is the government.
The Linda Lindas
You may know The Linda Lindas as a cool teen punk band, but you may not have realized they are also badass activists. They are a half-Asian, half-Latinx punk band rooted in activism. When they started the band, Bela (vocals/guitar) was fourteen, Lucia (vocals/bass) was twelve, Eloise (vocals/guitar) was eleven, and Mila (drums) was only eight. Although they had played together a few times before, they came together as a band for Save Music in Chinatown, a series of fundraising concerts where they got to play alongside punk legends to support music education in Los Angeles.
Many of their songs raise awareness about issues that are important to them. They released the song “VOTE!” before the 2020 presidential election, even though they were still too young to cast ballots. Eloise and Mila wrote “Racist, Sexist Boy” in response to Mila experiencing an act of anti-Asian hate at school. Their album Growing Up has songs about cute stuff like cats, but also revolution.
APEN (Asian Pacific Environmental Network)
Because activism never happens because of one person alone, it feels only right to highlight the work of a collective, like Asian Pacific Environmental Network, based in Richmond, CA. Richmond was where an explosion occurred inside a nearby Chevron oil refinery that had detrimental health effects on nearby residents, many who were Southeast Asian refugees.
The reality of being poor or a recent arrival to the US is that you can often only afford to live in low-income neighborhoods, many of which are located near toxic waste sites such as landfills, incinerators, and oil refineries. This environmental racism benefits rich people, who profit from industries that pollute, while poor people develop health issues from living near the source of the pollution. But when APEN formed in 1991, they would not stay silent. They believed—and still believe—that environmental racism must be fought by those it affects. They reached out to the Lao community in Richmond to help. Together, they forced Chevron to reduce emissions at the refinery by 70 percent. They have grown to a membership of 600-800 activists, who are Southeast Asians from Richmond and Chinese immigrants from nearby Oakland.
Kristina Wong is a co-author of Auntie Kristina’s Guide to Asian American Activism (Beaming Books) which is also co-written by Theodore Chao, Jenessa Joffe, and Anna Michelle Wang, with illustrations by Shehzil Malik. She’s the first Asian American woman to be named Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. She’s the writer and performer behind many solo plays which include Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kristina Wong for Public Office, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord, and the currently touring Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer.
Illustrations above are by Shehzil Malik, from Auntie Kristina's Guide to Asian American Activism.
Looking for more children's books for AAPI Heritage Month? Visit the Beaming Books website for a full list.
Need books by AAPI authors to add to your own TBR pile? Explore recommendations from our sister imprint, Broadleaf Books.