Sue Yeon Park has been given the honorific titles of yisuja for achieving the highest level of mastery of the salpuri-chum (Shaman ritual dance) and jeonsuja for the preservation of seungmu (Buddhist ritual dance) by the Ministry of Culture of South Korea.
Sue Ko Lee was a Chinese American garment worker and labor organizer with the Chinese Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Association. In 1938, she participated in a successful 15-week strike against the National Dollar Stores garment factory. At the time, it was the longest strike in the history of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Lee went on to become a leader in the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU) in California.
Enslaved woman in Spanish-controlled Philippine Islands killed because she refused a man’s advances
On January 20, 2021, Kamala D. Harris became the first woman, the first African American woman, the first Indian-American, the first person of Asian-American descent, and the first graduate of an HBCU to be sworn in as the Vice President of the United States of America.
Chinese opera performer
In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge terror of the 1970s devastated the institutions that supported dance drama. The tradition was uprooted as dancers and musicians who had survived the genocide fled to the United States. Three of these artists, determined to keep their heritage a living part of Cambodian life in the United States, formed the Apsara Ensemble.
Christina Huang was a Chinese American student who testified before the New Jersey State of Legislators to help lobby for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) History to be taught in public schools.
Saima Bhutta has been a social justice advocate in South Jersey for over 25 years. When Bhutta saw the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric following the 9/11 attacks, she was inspired to become further involved in her own community.
As a Japanese-American woman living through World War II, Mary Yamashita Nagao (1920-1985) was interned at the Manzanar Relocation Center in Owens Valley, California under Executive Order 9066.
Laotian-American weaver