Asian/American Transnational Feminisms: Patsy Takemoto Mink and U.S. Liberalism

The fields of women’s/gender history and studies has increasingly acknowledged the existence and significance of black, Chicana and indigenous feminisms.  However, there is little recognition of a body of praxis called Asian American feminism.  My presentation seeks to help rectify this oversight by exploring how Asian American feminists (a category that includes migrants, diasporic subjects, as well as the American-born) engage in transnational feminist projects that respond to globalization and militarization. 

I will focus my comments predominantly on Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color U.S. congressional legislator.  She grew up in the colonized territory of Hawaii, demanded equal pay for equal work for women, and co-sponsored important legislation such as Title IX, the Women’s Educational Equity Act, federally funded childcare and early childhood education.  I contextualize her activism in relation to the radical decolonial movements of the post-World War II era as well as the so-called liberal feminist movements that fought for equal access and equal opportunity in the 1960s and 1970s. 

How might a recognition of Mink change the way we think about feminism and Asian American women’s contributions to this praxis?  How might our conception of liberalism change if we consider how U.S. colonialization and militarism inspire the emergence of feminist critique?  And, how might transnational feminism look differently if we focus on an individual who was both a colonial and liberal subject of the U.S.?