Unknown Speaker 00:00 Hi I'm Shirley here, and welcome. Here today, we're very pleased to have this opportunity just to share with you our thoughts on Asian American women. And to hear from you what your concerns and questions are. Both when they touch mine, and Mei Chen and myself are going to make some brief statements. History and just highlighting, and maybe we'll deal with working women and then we'll deal with the media. So we'd like to do is to give some brief comments, and then really to have a dialogue, and perhaps in the process of the particular questions that you have that we didn't touch on. But before that, I'd like us perhaps to go around the rooms because we're small group. You can hear many, Mr. Unknown Speaker 00:52 Stark was saying when I introduce yourself, my name is Monique. I'm a senior Bonner. And I'm a psych major. And I'm also a pre med. Major Yeah, just tell us who you are. Unknown Speaker 01:13 Panelist and I guess I've been given a tag of community activist. But what I do for full time job is I work in the research department of the International ladies garment workers union, local 2325. And I'm a paralegal doing immigration work. And Patricia caffeinated sociology for university. Unknown Speaker 01:33 We need hajima. And right now I'm producing a film on the Vincent Chin case in Detroit. And I've been impressed with that. And another film on the day in the life of beauty. My name is Viola fine. Unknown Speaker 01:53 Environmental Science major going into I'm James Harvey, Jr. Right My name is Elise divorced. And I try to do why do you live in Russia? So I received my BA after 10 years. So university studies. Project developing six years of studies. We're just going I'm Nancy Henningsen. I teach Chinese history at private school. directors would you like to introduce yourself to Katherine and school? Students? Unknown Speaker 03:28 Thank you. Those who just stepped in, before we introduced yourself, basically what may, Renee and myself are going to do just make some brief statements. And then we'll open things up for a dialogue. So bear with us while we make our statements. And so we'll have all our dialogue at the end. Okay. What I thought I'd do is begin with the definition of Asian American because that seems to raise some questions a lot of people are what information and some Asian Americans one No, am I an Asian American. And I think the working definition some of us have been using is essentially Asian Americans are those persons whose family ancestry from the islands and countries of the Pacific Rim, but who now call America the United States their home, now call the United States of America. And we share a long history and our history is and I don't want to deal with immigration history. Essentially, when the numbers of Asian Americans are in sizable numbers are about 150 years so that Asian American history, nation American experience and history and struggle of Asian American women is not really a recent phenomenon, but it's at least 150 years old. And that we share a diversity too as well as some things in commonality and I don't want us to get that too, because that is very much a concern of many Asian American individuals that they may be Korean or Thai, Chinese or Japanese. We are ancient Indian. And we do have different historical experiences. We do have different languages, different cultures. There are also different generational experiences from first generation, refugees, the fifth and sixth generation, and different ethnic backgrounds to within communities such as Chinese, Chinese, China, Chinese, Vietnamese, just to give us some of the complexities. And so there is that diversity within the Asian American community. But I'm going to just quickly deal with today some of the commonality that Asian American women share, and also what they share with other women of America. And that the problems that Asian American face today are, in general, very similar to what they have experienced 150 years ago. Some things may be slightly different, but essentially, the experience and the struggles remain the same as minority women in the US Asian American women share with other electrical oppression, racism, sexism, and class oppression. But also, as women who is a store ancestry comes from Asia, we also bear the additional burdens of colonialism and neocolonialism and that legacy of with varying degrees depending upon your own upbringing, your family experience, your class background, patriarchy, the domination of male teacher value systems, particularly in family structure structure, just to highlight a few things and to deal with the theme, which is really one of myth and reality, that is the myth of Asian American and Asian women as a docile, decorative and personification of femininity. And to talk more really about what their lives perhaps have been, and when to just have to highlight and look at some things historically, and perhaps some of us can have a better understanding of where the Asian American struggle today given some of the historical backgrounds. First, the experience of Chinese women who came up in the 1840s 1850s, to the 1880s. And we look at the early history, actually, the recruitment of Asian Americans to the United States during the late 19th century was really a recruitment of men, laborers, so women came as reunification or joining a family structure. And for the most part, they did work, but they were not specifically recruited as workers, as opposed to a temporary period where women are recruited, as we're talking about Filipino nurses, professionals come in and of themselves as we're completely professional. But women worked, Asian American women have always worked, in fact, proportionally more more as a minority group, more Asian American women work than any other group. So we've always worked in that respect, but the conditions under which Asian women arrived late 19th century somewhat different from the conditions in Rome today. Unknown Speaker 08:00 Without going through all that history, essentially, the struggle of Asian American women 19th century was one of working and raising their family, and at the same time being separated from their family. The few there were very few Chinese women actually in the coming as by themselves in the 19th century, because women were essentially after immigration laws restricted from coming. And as a consequence, what many Chinese men did not bring their wives right of reasons one was caused, and the other was they didn't want expose them to discrimination, the context of consequences for the Chinese women spent most of their lives essentially separated from their husbands. So it's, they were essentially, women who raised their families by themselves, either in China, or when they came in, join their spouses here also raised a family series, but for the most part, it was a light of separation, rather than the model of the Asian family. Lots of people think about when you think about Asian communities that there's sort of this ideal three generational family existed for that period of labor recruitment essentially didn't exist. And so that Chinese women were either left in China to take care of raising children and to take care of in laws, the husband's family, or and seeing only their spouses every 10 years or so. And that was the condition and struggle of our daily lives. A few women who arrived who did not arrive as members of families were brought as prostitutes and this is something we have to deal with. Some people are uncomfortable dealing with with this issue. But the the literature and the experience of many Chinese women of that period does show us that this experience occurred and we have to deal with the far west coast United States at the time, in which it was essentially a frontier society and a larger portion of males were working who had to be satisfied so women of all color and nationality were brothers prostitutes to the West Coast. It was part of the development the West Coast. Again, this is an example of the condition exploit The issue of women that that Chinese women were either sold into prostitution, kidnapped or fooled or tricked, or, in many cases, because of the feudal tradition, women actually went into prostitution as a way to support their family. beautiful daughters is a way of being able to keep the founders alive scan of a condition that women experience. So that for the most part, Chinese women were exploited, therefore, as workers, and once again, supporters of their family in this particular manner, there were a few women who were entrepreneurial, and went out and open their own brothels. And it's Lucy Chang, who has done most of the research on this finding that, in essence, though, the level of expectation was even higher than just through prostitution. But during periods of law, they're expected to to do cleaning, domestic work, and knitting and fixing garments, and so on so forth, an additional level of exploitation. The but for the most part, the struggle of the Chinese American women at that time was one of being pioneers of having to endure this kind of separation, and at the same time, having to raise their children more or less by themselves. For the most part, though, there were very, very few Chinese American families in that first period because of the immigration restriction, and so that we don't really see Chinese American second generation until the 1930s 1940s. And that's one of the concerns of Asian American communities have that immigration restriction law, which prevented the Chinese from entering the United States as workers after 1882. And then restricted women afterwards, was really the genesis of policy of destruction of the family. For Japanese women, the East Bay women in particular, many of them came as picture brides. And I think Mays brought a book and she should probably deal with it. But essentially, the picture brides that came over, we have to really, again, admire women who took that adventurous risk of coming across the ocean, without a picture in the hand of whoever was at the other end. And particularly, the story that to me will show is, she particularly chose to come to leave Japan, it was a good choice on her part. And I think we forget with the with the nature of oppression, that dead women do take those risks. And they do want to separate and break from feudal traditions. And sometimes that means marrying someone we've never seen, in order to do that, they took that chance to go into a new society and culture. At the same time, finding the experience of having to do the kinds of work that they had not expected to do. The very lives of most of the immigrant women of the Pioneer age for was one where they worked in the shops or in the fields, Unknown Speaker 12:57 for long hours returning to the household to do most of the cooking, washing, cleaning, and so on, so forth. Again, the nature of the patriarchy is such that the division of labor in the household just doesn't exist in in Asian households. So the women did everything. And of course, we're dealing with a period of time in the rural areas where many women had their children without doctor's presence, or if they're lucky, a midwife. So those are some of the conditions and the persistence and courage, stamina that the first pioneer generation had. And much of the literature talks about the sacrifices of the Issei women, who in the process created a very well educated, second generation who, through the sacrifice and unpaid labor of women were able to send their children to college, and so on and so forth. Those struggles and experiences were much very similar for the Filipinos, Korean and Asian Indian immigrants who followed in the late 19th century and early 20th century. One of the phenomenon that occurs for Asian migration is that because men were sent over earlier, they usually saved up money and then sent for a wife and went back and got a wife. And what happens you have this age gap between the men and the women. And one of the things we find in the community is that these late marriages of the older man, younger woman means that often the woman is widow very early. And so what we do have is are women raising four or five children by themselves at a very relatively young age, and this is a condition also the Asian American experience. It's also a condition in our elderly community when we find the older woman living by herself and again, the notion of the three generation family is there but it's not in the slideshow. As people would like it to believe statistically, it just it just doesn't necessarily exist. Anyway, years from the late 19th century to the late 20th century were very difficult years for Asian Americans and for Asians in Asia because this is a period of time of the American expansion and imperialism in into Asia. It affects Asians in both areas, Asians in the United States and in Asian in Asia, in this from, you know, Spanish American War all the way up through to the Vietnam War for the supporting of militaristic regimes such as Smartlist. apart, and the consequences for Asian Americans are many. And I'm just going to deal with just just a few of them. All of you are familiar with the Japanese camp experience, in which again, the literature shows, again, the resilience of the Asian American woman, Japanese American woman who took the brunt of the trauma to the family, and tempted to hold it together when it was shattered, particularly when Japanese American males felt more the shame and the trauma of having to be uprooted. And having that loyalty question. So it was, again, Japanese American woman who took that burden on other examples of some of the trauma though, and also some of the chances and opportunities for women with this that with the American presence in Asia through war, and that's how a lot of Americans know Asian Americans is really through war and images of war is that in fact, Asian American women participated in many struggles here. Unknown Speaker 16:19 Whether it was the struggles for independence for China, Chinese America, raised march to raise money and so on, so forth, the anti imperialist struggles, the independence for the Philippine independence, for Korea, Asian American women all participated in, in those struggles in the United States lobbying and raising money, writing letters and so on, so forth. There, there are other consequences to that, that come from it, which are very different. One is the consequence of the word right. And the other is the consequence of the refugee, which is, which was a different experience. There are very many, many happy marriages. So war brides and so on. But the literature also shows that the word right experience can have some negative consequences for many women who are often then left behind here or high degree of domestic violence, or cultural shock, and with no community to turn to. And, again, some concerns amongst nation work and social workers phenomenon, once a worker at the refugee situation is one that that is more common that perhaps you're more familiar with now, because it's been in the news for the last 10 years. Once again, the shock and disruption of being a refugee is is more devastating than being an immigrant because as an immigrant, you have a certain amount of planning that goes on. But with the refugee there's there is no return and what you have with you, it's what you have, and also the separation of the family and bringing the trying to unify the families are scattered all over the place, or, or the guilt and loss of members of guilt, because of loss of lives, remember, the families and so on, makes it more difficult for people to rebuild their lives. In the United States. At the same time, what we have is the Asian American women, Vietnamese women can only women and others of Indo China have had to, again, carry that strength, both working. At the same time, the literature has revealed the the shock and trauma and disruption to family life, and also is that as men find it more difficult to make a career adjustment. Whereas women having the other side of sexism never having had that career, you don't have to make the career adjustment. So as a consequence, when women go out to work, because they need to work. This somehow changes power structure within families. And this could cause not always but it is something that people have to deal with. But it's something that women carry on and do as a matter of course. May we'll talk about I think garment industry and just ministry. A little bit. Okay, on that. I'd like to talk about two areas that I think women are most seen in and I think we're our live sort of measures. One is that women work Asian American women work, and then the family. And a general picture of Asian American women in the workforce is no different from all other minority women in the workforce in the sense that we'll get a wise occupationally and that, you know, we're paid less and so on so forth. The one exception for Asian American women, which is not true for other women is our presence in science and technology, which for Asian women, if you're the professional techniques is almost a traditional thing. It's for when we're encouraging women to go into non traditional roles. In fact, Asian women are in science and technology. There's some reasons for that. It's it's really a reflection of racism, which Asian Americans haven't not gone into the humanities or the social sciences, because they one never felt that they could. They could be unemployment in that area and others the kind of social skills, and the communication skills that are required in that and the level of judgment in social sciences, humanities is so great, that it's harder for Asians to pass that judgment in. Give them give me an example, in a sense, when you complete a science experiment, supposedly your conclusions are more objective. If you write a theme paper on a book or French Revolution or something like that, and you're an Asian, the question always is, well, what do you know about France and Europe and French Revolution, whereas it's easier to do a chemistry experiment or mathematical equation. So Asian Americans have found that a particular barrier and as a consequence, when they go into professional technical move into science, technology, or accounting, math, those areas, even in the social sciences, when Asian markets move into, they tend to move into the number crunchers quantitative rather than qualitative, you find in the sociology, as and it's not necessarily by choice. But as far as the barriers, or the restrictions one has given racism, and discrimination within within occupational areas. Unknown Speaker 21:18 So women have always worked, but they find that their actual occupation gains have been limited. As a group, Asian Americans are rather educated. Although the data shows skewed in the sense that we have a 1/3 of the population less educated and a high degree of illiteracy in some communities. And the other end, we have the super educated people with more letters after their name, name, and we know what to do with. But if you look at the Americans, social stratification where they're supposed to be some kind of monetary or remunerative reward for the number of degrees of education, one finds for women and for Asian American women that were not compensated for the degrees for the number of years of educational one has, in other words, we're overqualified, we're paid less, and usually under underemployed. And I'm talking about professional technical folks, I'm in the academic community. And most particular, some students are interested in what they're going to do afterwards. So that's very common in the literature. The other area that women find themselves in particular immigrant women are the family businesses, and this has been historic phenomenon of the entrepreneur. Going into the entrepreneurial business is an immigrant phenomenon. And this is not just typical for Asians, it's all immigrant groups is that opening your mom and pop store was one way to earn a living because you closed out other opportunities to find employment. So what do you do we open? The green grocer, and one of the recent studies has shown that over 30, a little about 30% of the Korean grocery store, owners have college degrees. And they're working their own because of the license. The problem is they've come they're educated as a pharmacist or an engineer, but they cannot make the transition. Sometimes, like there's a lot of customers licensing. So as a consequence, they have to support the family and have to live in to eat. And so and so therefore, they open up. Versus this is just this is a 1970s 1980s phenomenon in New York. But the laundries of the 1880s is the same phenomenon Chinese Laundry is of the same the Japanese goes to support the 19 vices to say exactly the same phenomenon. It is an economic niche where people find employment because the clothes don't have other things. But we don't see as the role of Asian American women in and the next time you go buy these greengrocers take another look and see the women do most of these family businesses would would not survive if it were not for the unpaid family labor. And it's particularly the women who who are the sort of stalwart of that, because they're there also when the male members have gone to get up at three o'clock in the morning to drive market and buy the groceries. So somebody has to open up. Somebody has to do the capital of the day. So it's it's a very long, arduous no pay, no leisure, no rest, and you take care of your kids on site. But it's one of absolute sacrifice. So this when people don't take vacations, they if they close the store to go to somebody's wedding, they lose money. If they turn if they twist their back, there's no good person to heal. So it's not it looks like people are doing well everything but it's a tremendous, tremendous sacrifice. And the new studies been done on the entrepreneurial is for that particular Korean greengrocers that there's no intention of passing this store on to the next generation. So it's really just to get out of that so the children can go on to college and at best what will happen is you might sell in the store to a new member Britain has just come over and pass that on but but at tremendous, tremendous sacrifice, that they hope to be just out of this business in a very short period of time. And most of the businesses start, of course, in marginal neighborhoods, which means they take the brunt of crime and a variety of other ethnic and racial tensions which are part of urban society. But it really the crux of that is the Korean American woman or the Japanese women are really at the center of the business. Finally, on the family itself, I think that tradition still persists in in many sectors of society, Asian American community where women were raised for life of sacrifice, still continue to see putting their children first, putting family first before selves, which means Asian American women are usually the last to develop themselves as persons, and also therefore to have done the community work. Unknown Speaker 26:05 And this is a it's a matter of struggle for their own time, and their own effort to do something for the community. I don't think that has changed so much. Although I think the options have changed, which is very different. The options in terms of employment have changed dramatically. And I think if, if students were asked me to do what was different, I think they have more options. And that has, of course, creates more problems for some people. But inclusion is what I like to say is the whole image of Asian American women is passive, obedient, submissive, demure, helped make the ideal wife or girlfriend. The Dream, which is a dream of really a patriarchal society, it's really their invention. They invented it, because they needed it. And we see this today with the cherry blossoms advertisement, some of you may be familiar with. Usually white, lower middle class males who are looking for ideal wives, and they haven't found them. Therefore, they sign up for it's what is the newsletter with pictures, photos, of women in Asia, who are usually from the rural areas, not necessarily but they their need there. They want to just get out of poverty. And she was so great that they started with pen pal, a relationship and some of them through the picture brides. And again, this is what it was, the Japanese were criticized for this picture brides in the 19th century, and it was used against them as a phenomenal perversion. And that's why we should stop the Japanese from coming in. But now it's done to cherryblossom it's okay to order a ride through a picture today. And this phenomenon just doesn't exist in reality. Similarly, this ideal worker that who's willing to the clerical stuck staff, the invisible technician, who's willing to work hard, not rock the boat, don't ask for raises, which is the view of Asian Americans as workers. And same time Asian Americans look decorative. Rene will deal with that stereotype of the erotic exotic. But that phenomenon, of course, is always some measure of reality in the stereotype, but the reality that I would like to leave you with really is the struggle 450 years in the United States of making it of surviving and trying to change the world of participating in tenants struggles and participating in struggles or ethnic studies programs, and participating in Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, in fighting for eliminating or removing Marcos. Everything from anti colonialism to civil and human rights is really a part of our struggle, and that our voices are not silent as Mexican. nor our feet bound. Maybe you want to go next. Unknown Speaker 29:17 Okay, yeah, mine will be pretty brief. Because you covered everything I was gonna say. No, I thought what I would do, originally, I was going to redo some of this history. But I actually brought three kind of quotes from various literature that was written by Asian women. So I think instead of like going through the history, which surely has covered quite adequately, maybe read some of these selections, and then talk a little bit about the kind of work that I do and what are some of the modern day promise of Asian just I guess to preface these comments, I just wanted to say that in this last generation of say, 30 or 40 years, the Asian American woman's experience has changed tremendously and you will see this in the families of, I'm sure all the Asian women here, where we are out where our mothers were at where our grandmothers are at, in their own lives, you can trace a lot of the changes in history that Shirley has talked about. I mean, my own family, my grandmother had bound feed, my mother never worked really was a housewife and stayed at home. And then now I'm kind of like a working woman. So I can't go out there, and mothering a working mother. So I think that every agent will have different things in their own life that reflect on some of these experiences. And I just wanted to point out that there are basically two levels of struggle that we are undergoing, and and I would say change is equal to struggle for Asian women. Because, as as Shirley's talk, pointed out quite clearly, the various obstacles that we face historically, and today require a certain amount of resilience, perseverance, and struggle to change to arenas one, I think, within our community, there are still a lot of traditional and old fashioned attitudes, these are changing, but they have not changed without women struggling against them. And I think that a lot of those old fashioned kind of patriarchal male chauvinist ideas of you know, women should stay in the home, that sons somehow should be given more benefits than daughters and their family. And these kinds of things. I'm sure many of the Asian women here, young, even young Asian women might have seen this in their own families. And those are things that we women have had to pay for the resilience of Asian women that Shirley has pointed out, are some of the stabilizing values of the Asian culture around family and marriage, the value placed on education and hard work, and certain things about just, you know, moral, moral training, as well as I'm not sure how to really define this. In a way that's that clear. I know that when I was a school teacher, and I've worked with a lot of Asian parents, they complain that the American schools or they don't teach moral behavior to the kids, and there's a little bit too much of just, you know, kids can do whatever they want. I think within the Asian culture, there's still a certain emphasis on, you know, values of goodness and kindness and those kinds of things. That, you know, I guess that's kind of what I'm trying to say. But it's still fairly strong in the way children are raised and the way our families look at people to people relationships. So within our community, I think a lot of these things are being still defined, and they're undergoing certain flux. outside of our community, and with women in the broader like American community, I think that we're still struggling against a number of different problems. One would be just racism towards Asian population, men or women, in terms of our access to different occupations, attitudes. Now Rene is doing this film on Vincent Chin, you're the recent increase in anti Asian violence due to so somewhat to the refugee experience to some of the conflicts between, say, Asian small businesses and non Asian communities and things like that. I think we also have a lot of struggling and then thinking to do about this question of assimilation ism. And this whole thing about the model minority image that has been placed on Asians, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I think it's a bad thing. Actually, it has been a very divisive thing. And it has put a certain tag on Asians that gives people in the outside community the impression that we're all successful, and we're all happy the way things are, when in fact, there is still a long way to go. And not every one of us is successful. And I know that quite well, working in garment union where, you know, 20,000, Chinese women are working in sweatshops, and sweatshops seem to be going back to the old days instead of improving. Unknown Speaker 33:55 Finally, I think that in the United States as a whole, this, this notion of a pluralistic or more multicultural society, is not that well accepted. I know, my children going to schools in New York City today are not learning that much more about Asian Americans or other ethnic Americans than I learned when I was going to school in the 50s. And in those days, it was very conservative towards both women and ethnic groups, and I didn't even have any minority teachers in school at all. And these days, you you may have some more minority teachers and others, but in terms of the curriculum, I don't see there's a whole lot of advance in spite of a lot of the talk of the last 10 years have tried to improve that. So I think that in terms of the outside community, there's still a long ways to go for agents as well as other people to make ourselves more visible, understood in a more general way. I wanted to read these three quotes because I think that a positive development in the last 20 years since the whole you know ethnic, ethnic studies and Women's Studies movements of the 60s has been the development of a voice of Asian women telling our own story, which didn't exist. fora, although this voice is not widely publicized or widely understood, it is there. And you know, you mentioned Maxine Hong Kingston, she probably has had she and probably David Henry Hwang had the most broad reception for their works. In general, I think that what the mass media and the mass population the United States still picks up are going to be a lot of the racist stereotypes that Rene will talk about. But I think to counterbalance that, at least today, there are books and there are more writings, magazines and periodicals that were Asian women write about our own experience and where people can read that from, from our eyes. So I wanted to just read three quotations which reflect different aspects of the history of Asian women, kind of from an Asian woman's eyes. The first one is I should have brought the actual books because except for this one, I had typed those codes on his card, so I didn't bring the books on the subway. The first book is written by Ruth and lum makan. And she, I'm not sure exactly what Her background was, I think she may have been an Anglo American was adopted by an Asian family or sent or something. Maybe she was really good fellowship. She lives in parks. Unknown Speaker 36:20 And it's just done another book on Unknown Speaker 36:22 the serve up the sole survivor, right? She's a novelist and a scholar. And she wrote a book called 1000 pieces of gold, which was about the first pioneer Chinese woman who lived in the wild west and was one of actually she was brought over originally as a prostitute. It's amazing. Yeah, that story is really amazing. She then She recently wrote a book called The sole survivor, which was about a Chinese man who was Torqeedo. Submarine in World War Two and holds the Ripley's Believe It or Not world record for number of days surviving its feet. And that was a very, very interesting book I read that she's I find her writing very interesting and easy to read and expressive of the Chinese experience. In this scene, on the see what I have here this this scene takes place in China, and the girl's name is lalloo. She was the the this pioneer woman who eventually came to United States. But this scene shows her experience in China being from a poor family, and the family being so poor that finally they decided they had to sell her in order to feed the rest of them in order so that she could live at least sold off to somebody. So some, some man in a marketplace as is checking her out for for purchase. And this is a quote, he held Loulou at arm's length, examining her like a farmer about to purchase livestock, pretty face, nice white teeth and shiny hair. But such big feed the brothels in Shanghai like bound feed and smooth white skin, your burn black. He smiled lasciviously. Of course, my men wouldn't care. You could be a common wife to them. My wife lasted a week, but you're tough. I'm sure you last at least a month. He nuzzled his scratchy beard against her cheek. Then again. Maybe I'll keep you for myself. He threw a bag in front of lollies father it burst scattering soybeans. Lava stared at her father wheeling him not to pick them up. He reached out hesitated, then looked up at Lolo, his eyes pleading for understanding. She twisted her face away Assad strangling her throat behind her she heard him snatch the bag and scoop up the spilled seed. Two bags her father bag, she's worth two bags of seed laughing scornfully chin toss the other bag down flung loudly over his shoulder like the side of Portland stocked up the door. So that's lollies toward. The next quote is from a comments by Japanese women who experienced the war bride experience. And I think surely pointed out well, the kind of double sided coin on the war brides. And I think that exists today too, for some of these arranged marriages or immigrant women that are coming to the United States. And even this question of taking work in a sweatshop or taking work for under such terrible conditions is, is to them, like getting away from the very restrictive home environment and for for Asian women. That restrictiveness of you know what I guess sociologists would call an insight very strict inside outside differentiation where the women were always stuck inside the house and they couldn't they couldn't really even go outside the house unless, you know maybe a vendor came down the street and they could run out with their mother or mother in law and let's go back into the house. I mean, that was very, very real thing. And if you like some of the garment workers that I worked with, will tell me that you know their mothers are in the village Pitch, that this was actually a very real thing that they lived through, and that they remember their own life. And even some of the early women who came and lived in New York, Chinatown had to always stay in their little apartment on Mott Street or Catherine's dream, just look out the window. You know, that was about it, so that that environment was quite real. So this is a Japanese war bride. And this came out of the book to serve the devil, which is a kind of documentary history of various ethnic groups in America and have a section on the Japanese and gentlemen. Okay, goes, Oh, marriage, then I could get to America, that land of freedom with streets paved a goal. Since I became 10. I've been permitted to step outside our gates, just like all the girls in my day, becoming a picture broad, whatever that was, would be my answer in my release. I saw him for the first time at the immigration station. He was really old looking. So my heart stuck. I'm so disappointed I cry for eight days. I only came out from the room in the middle of the night to drink water, so I won't die. But if I knew that, oh, this is this is a Korean woman, actually. But I knew that if I don't get married, I have to go back to Korea on the next ship. So on the ninth day, I came out, but I don't talk to him for three months. Unknown Speaker 41:21 Okay, and then, actually, I guess this is three different people at the farm on Vashon Island to which I went, I had to draw water by bucket from a well, there was no furo I borrow boiled water and put it into a tub. There was no electricity, I used oil lamps, no matter how backward Japan might have been. This was life in the hinterland. So I think these three will reflect some of the expectations and hopes the reality and you know, this experience that early Asian women experience Okay, the last quote is from this book through harsh winters, which was written by a chemical Morrow, who I believe is still teaching in the university. And this book, she wrote about her mother and her own family and her mother was one of the basically almost like Japanese pioneer women and had What about eight or 10 children? Kimmy Kennedy was one of eight or 10. And a Kennedy is probably in her maybe mid 30s or four. She Unknown Speaker 42:20 was the youngest. That's that's Washington. She wrote the book because it was the age group. Unknown Speaker 42:25 Right. So this talks about the working experience of Japanese women in the California farmland and the experience actually, when you read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, and when you read this, you'll see a lot of similarities. Okay, this goes pear picking started in Walnut Grove. I said, let's go. After Paris came peach packing and Marysville and Marysville. The air was so stifling hot that we would rise at three in the morning, and quickly pick the peaches before the sun's rays reach their peak. We lived in a vacated schoolhouse and fetch water from a well. Since there was no kitchen we dug a hole in the earth and placed two metal bars over the hole to cook our food. Apple packing came next in Watsonville I was the cook there. My I did all the farm work that was to do in America. Papa and I and the children going from place to place to move was easy. All I had to do was roll up the blankets and say let's go. And soon after we were gone. Issei it was all this it was the same for all of them. They would bring their children everywhere. saw the end they would wrap their children and blankets and go from Watsonville and moved on to Pismo. We stayed in a house behind a grocery store owned by Haku Jean white person. He felt sorry for us living in the camps and he led us live there free. It was the first time I lived in a house since coming to America. In the morning. The waves were great near near our window. Papa would go fishing and we would dig for clams and cook them over the heat of a lamp. Oh how delicious. We weren't from us walk us on picking peas. He planted them on the mountain slope because they grew faster away from the ocean fog yet warm by the gentle salt air. The view from the mountains was breathtaking. We would leave this town in the car and let her sleep while we pick peas on slope so steep that you slipped with each step. Already my stomach bulge big with child I worked up to the day Hannah was born. So this was the Japanese first generation. So I guess just another one or two comments and then we should go into the stereotypes. And then I hope we'll have some discussion. Just to underline what surely has said about Asian women working. I have a statistic which might be a little bit old now that the 80 census had come up 64% of Asian women work today. This is in comparison to 58% of the general white population of women and 62% among black women. And in spite of the harshness of their working conditions, which are reflected in this book, and then also I'll talk a little bit about the garment industry today. This working has given Asian women their first economic independence and exposure to a society that to them has represent certain freedom from the back backwardness of the Asian feudal tradition. And I think that the economic independence, I just want to say how important that is, because if women don't work themselves, and they have to ask their husband or whoever else for money, you really don't have much freedom. And so I think for even among the garment workers that I work with today, who don't make a whole lot of money, but having their own source of income is very important. So I think in that respect for Asian women to work, and having that kind of economic independence, and if they have money, they can borrow if they want to, or if they contribute money into the home, they can have some say so and how the money will be spent, is very important. The garment union, that the garment industry in the last 20 years or so has undergone tremendous changes. And the early early garment industry people have probably read about recently, because of in the Women's History Month, there's been, you know, coming up on Tuesday, there's been a lot of activity around this Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and some of the historical struggles of garment women to organize into unit. Ironically, the early I started reading, because of this whole history month, and then we had this big observation, the unit around the triangle fire, I started reading some of the history of our union. And ironically, the early history is men, you know, the tailors who organized the unit first. And I guess that's why men still run. In any case, it started out with the tailors who were, you know, making those tailored suits for people. But but the real growth and the backbone of the working force of the Union became women very quickly, because of the struggles of the immigrant garment. Women in the between 19 119 1019 15, you know, when they were fighting against child labor and the sweatshops and that kind of thing, that was really the big period of growth for the Igw. The union has is one of the older unions in New York City and formed I think, in 90 countries. So it's now celebrating its 86th year, and the, through the efforts of the garment industry. Unknown Speaker 47:14 An industry which had been really founded on this kind of real sweatshop labor and children and that kind of thing was able to get beyond that. But I think in the last 20 to 30 years has really back slid a lot due to a number of different factors. One being the fact that this industry is has always been largely immigrant industry. And it's one that women can do, because even women coming from the countryside of China can learn how to know how to operate a sewing machine, because most women from the countryside of whatever country, whether it's from Europe, or Central America, or Asia, have, you know, make clothes for the family and they know how to operate a machine. And when they come here, and it's an it's a job that is readily available in the United States, it doesn't require a lot of training doesn't require English language skills. And it's very labor intensive. And so I think over the generations in New York City, you've seen, you know, to from Jewish to Italian, to black, patient, Caribbean, and Latin, and now Asian women filling this industry. And similar to what Charlie mentioned about the green grocer is it's not an industry that you pass on to your children, very, very few garment women. There are very few of the daughters of the garment women who were educated the United States will continue to work in this industry. So you'll have kind of whatever the new wave of immigrants is, will fill this industry. And I think, stepping away from the fact that I worked in the Union for a moment, the union probably has not been as energetic in the last 30 or 40 years to keep up with every new wave of immigrants that has come in. And really, what do you call aggressively, like organize each new wave as they've come in? The local that I work for is now about 80% 80 to 90%, Asian, and it used to be Chinese as well as Korean, although many of the Korean shops have non now gone non union. And so now is mainly Chinese and also Hispanic workers. And we're probably one of the more active locals of the ILWU. We have many educational, English classes and other programs for our members. We have a large staff of people who are all bilingual, and either Chinese and English or Spanish and English. And it's really only in this way that a union can really maintain some kind of time with the members that continue to have that kind of vitality that trade unions should have in terms of being close to the membership. The conditions in New York today are such that in the United States in general, because of this changing balance of trade, a lot of the major garment manufacturers have found it more profitable to take their garment industry abroad. And so in the last especially 10 or 20 years, you find a lot of it You know, Van Heusen and all these major American manufacturers whose shirts, dresses and other clothing are made in other countries. And that has hurt American workers jobs in a pretty real way. Because a lot of the both in terms of a lack of jobs and also in the driving down the prices, wages and conditions of the workers in this country, because when workers here have to compete with, you know, with foreign workers whose whole monetary system and you know, labor conditions is very different. It's very difficult to, to keep fighting for better contracts. And it's even even keeping the contracts at the same level, it's very hard. So even in Chinatown, today, we just recently found out that there's a really large number of shops that are becoming non union, because it's cheaper to produce garments that way. So Unknown Speaker 50:54 the union shops that have to pay for benefits, holidays and other basic rights of the workers having to compete with that non union makes it very difficult. And it's not being able to hold its own that well. So we can talk about this more in the discussion. But the flip side to to it is that having a union has provided Chinese women with a form of organization, and in spite of all of the burdens that Chinese working women face with the family and the job that has long hours, and so on. to contradict one thing that surely said, I think is that actually women have become fairly active in the community. And because I think it's also because men work even longer hours. And it's really mentioned, they're not around that community that much, that women are the main fighters in tenant organizations and PTAs, you know, for the schools for their children, and also in the union. And I worked very actively with the with a Chinese committee of the coalition labor union. And it's been very exciting because many Chinese women have expressed they want to organize, I want to work together, they realize, and I think probably most women realize that one woman by yourself isn't going to get anywhere. And it's only by women getting together, and voicing the same kind of problems that we are able to accomplish certain demands and advances. And I think among the garment workers, especially where you know, you work in a work workplace where if one person sticks her neck out, she'll just get fired and hire somebody else to take her place. But a collective kind of struggle is what is the only way that you will accomplish anything, maybe you lose, but if you win, maybe you win. So I guess I'll end here. Pick up, Unknown Speaker 52:38 try to make it great. I know you've been alluding to my talking about stereotypes. But I think mostly I'll talk about why media means so much to Asian women today. Stereotypes are very easy. There's a lotus blossom. There's a dragon waiting since 1900 to 1986, probably the year 2000. So that's that's that that's basically what exists. But inevitably, you have a gathering like this, we'll talk about media, there'll be a subject, I think more than than many other groups in the society and media just has a very critical meaning for Asian women. And unfortunately, we're something we're very much excluded from Shirley asked me to show something for this panel on the images of Asian women, and I couldn't think of anything I asked me, and she couldn't think of anything except for this brand clip Asian swatch, which was many years ago. So I haven't worked on when I was a student there. Funnily enough, I know it's three screens. And so I didn't want to show it. But rather than out kind of tell you about the making of that slideshow, because I think that kind of a lot of meaning, tells you a lot about what it means to the reclamation women's slideshow on Asian Women's images was first project of the first women's group of Asian Women's Group at Red college. And this is about eight years ago. Something that we thought would be a real simple legal project to do and you know, kind of get to know each other at the same time. It turned out to be completely chromatic. There are a lot we at that point, we had not worked out why we came together as the Asian Women's Group. There are a lot of different types of women in there. And because of what did did not exist an Asian women at that time we hadn't started from a vacuum. And it really ended up being this emotional turmoil for all the women in the group. Because we were in fact, in the process of defining our image where nothing really existed. And in finding that image, we had to look into our reality. This was not a typical group because they're all harvest students, but they did come from different backgrounds. So in a way it's sort of a metaphor for the Asian Women's community and looking at a reality take a look Let's say a woman who has grown up in an all white suburb, very politically conservative, but for some reason, wants to join an Asian Women's Group, and an image of show her an image of a Vietnamese woman freedom fighter with an M one carbine in her hand, and get her to make that leap. You know, this is part of our collective image, our collective consciousness, and what does it mean to you or the woman who grew up with a Chinatown, and you give them the images of garment workers in Chinatown, a place that she wants to leave a place that she doesn't want other people to know she came from? This is her mother, this is her sister, that the the people she grew up with that was a very difficult, I think, connection for a lot of women to make, to realize that, you know, this history that surely just spoke up in this contemporary reality, that that may just spoke up, it's really a part of ourselves. think another reason is because we were all 1819, because this is going to be first and last word on the whole subject. And as it turns out, it was because that's all I think it taught me that making, as well as showing media can be a tool, an organizer. So when in fact, it was, in fact, those laws, those women today are still in some way active in the community with their attorneys, or doctors, or some of them did remain activist. And one, that's one of the reasons I think I became a filmmaker, because I saw that, that whole process, and I fortunate enough today that they work with mostly Asian women, other Asian women, media people. I think another thing it taught me is that, that the whole process of media, media itself meant power. We knew that being excluded from media, powerlessness, that this was a real power. This is something where we took it around to show people and in 20 minutes time, they understood what we've been sort of muddling around trying to say something for so many years. And you know, one showing you can bring all these different women, let's say from different colleges, for from different kinds of workplaces together, and really develop the kind of unity and understanding women of all different colors. So we've learned with the the power, the media could be like, Thank you. What Unknown Speaker 57:29 it also meant so much, because we're also aware of what existed out there. As I just said, Lois Lawson, where the dragon lady, and how much of a destructive force that's really been in our community, I don't want to go on too long. But one thing I do want to address because the feminists Women's Conference, is that the medium means a lot to Asian women, not only making it but finding against existing images itself, those images on the screen of the passivation woman, the woman that doesn't fight back, the woman that's, you know, an object for rape, the woman that is the the model minority who will take any kind of working, working conditions at all. And that's why you'll you'll see, let's say the year of the dragon, a Hollywood movie that was just produced, you see mainly Asian women out there on the street picking these theaters. And I think within the women's movement, it's a very important issue because it brings in this whole question of censorship and First Amendment rights. And now we've got a lot from other non Asian women, when we organize against these films, I just want to kind of give a background of why it meant so much to us because of our virtual exclusion from power in the in the making of popular media, other than what we can do on a small independent level, we have to go out and fight those kinds of images on the screen. And it really the question of First Amendment rights and such censorship to us becomes very irrelevant. Because those rights you need power to exercise those rights. And it's a it's a world where we virtually have no power to exercise. If you look at a newspaper, look at the Village Voice and movie listings, look at all the credits you will not see one Asian woman, same actress, look for the past 50 years. Turn on the TV, look in the credits, what's the one agent and we have virtually no presence and no power behind the scenes in filmmaking studios in the networks and television. With the interesting exception that is useless, which is why Unknown Speaker 59:46 the erotic except that means the depth decorative Unknown Speaker 59:50 for my theory is that Connie Chung for some reason had Lux in the company that she made it and because of the way TV works, they hit upon the Winner and I just look for, you know, replications of the winner, we were lucky enough to get it in the area like media because you know, when you talk about judgment, I mean, in journalism, the whole question of judgment really becomes critical. Because you've got generally the authoritarian, deep voice, white older male, is the Unknown Speaker 1:00:22 messenger of truth. Unknown Speaker 1:00:24 And you've got an Asian woman up there, you know, woman from one thing, an Asian woman, who is telling you about world events, what's happening in the Middle East, etc, it's really an incredible thing. Although, other than like Connie Chung or tiny town, not even really, those get soft, Asian women do still get the sob stories. I know that just in my experience as a filmmaker doing, which is considered in the public television realm, a hard story, because it's more investigative reporting. They just didn't believe it to Asian, do it the objective, really get the story really do the hard hitting analysis. And they gave us these layers of older white male story consultants who are to look over us and make sure that we're doing it right. We just call them every six months and tell them hi, we're fine. But it's something where, you know, this question judgment really is important. How this thing happened with Connie Chung, I think it's just great. Regardless of how I feel about Kenny Tang, and some of the rest of them, I think it's just kind of a freak accident. And then otherwise, you know, what does exist is right now is primarily something we don't support. It's something we fight against. And I think that's one thing I like to see discussed more, in terms of the women's myth itself is what is this question of censorship and First Amendment rights? And, you know, for us, I think for Asian women, we found that we really had to define our own values, we do have different values, different values, in terms of what is objectivity? And what is journalism exists elsewhere in the world, as well as then in our own communities. So I think that's something that we've, we felt that you know, there are mitigating kinds of rights that we want to exercise, for example, the control over our own image, the control over access to our communities for people coming in to our communities and seizing our image, you know, our faces, and our buildings and our workplaces, which is what filmmakers and people do that that control more than let's say, right, if Michael Cimino produced the film like you're the dragon, or for whatever else was this little trouble the challenge