Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (published in 1976) is known for its feminism and for giving voice to the experience of being first generation Asian American. It is an intersectional masterpiece that is part factual memoir and part “talk-story,” i.e., creative storytelling, not just about Hong Kingston’s childhood but also about her female relatives. Through these women, we see the juxtaposition of strength and powerlessness, of warriors and ghosts, of Chinese and Chinese-American. For Hong Kingston, being able to use one’s voice meant being […]
A Sort of Ghost Story
Angela Flournoy’s debut novel The Turner House garnered many awards, including National Book Award finalist (2015). It’s the story of the Turner family — Francis and Viola and their 13 children — over two generations and their life in the house on Yarrow Street in Detroit. When the novel begins, it seems that life in that particular home is about to end, and the Turner family is divided over how to handle this. Yet the house is not the only issue that confronts and divides […]
An Unsung American Hero
This brief but riveting history was just released last month. Erica Armstrong Dunbar is a Professor of Black Studies and History at the University of Delaware and has previously published an historical work entitled A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City. In the course of doing research some two decades ago, Dunbar came across an advertisement in an issue of the Philadelphia Gazette in 1796 for the capture of President Washington’s runaway slave Ona Judge. Her curiosity piqued, Dunbar resolved […]
Intersectional Science Fiction
Ascension is a sci-fi novel that shines a spotlight on characters whom you might not encounter in novels very often. Author Jacqueline Koyanagi wanted to write a story featuring people like herself and her friends, and so in Ascension we are introduced to some very strong and smart women (and a man) who might be living with physical disability, and/or have different skin, and/or be gay, and/or who might be involved in open relationships. While this is a refreshing change, and timely as many of […]
The Power of Words
Jacqueline Woodson’s 2014 poetic memoir Brown Girl Dreaming won a slew of awards: a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor, an NAACP Image Award, just to name a few. It is the beautifully told story of Woodson’s childhood, of the people and environments that formed both her and her dream of becoming a writer. It also offers glimpses into the civil rights movement and the experience of racism through the eyes of a child who witnessed […]
Nevertheless, She Persisted
…[R]efugees would not risk their lives on such a dangerous journey if they could thrive where they were. ~Melissa Fleming, office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Too many people in the West, particularly in the US, seem to think that refugees are moochers who want to selfishly come here to get something for nothing. We have little to no idea how refugees become refugees, and more tragically, we often just don’t give a damn. It’s not our problem, right? “If these people would […]
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