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Asian American Feminists "Breathe Fire" at Reading

Several contributors to a new book, Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire, will gather November 20 to share their views on immigration, work, health, mothering, spirituality, and the media, among other topics. Editor Sonia Shah, Lynn Lu, and Shyamala Raman are among the writers expected to attend and read from their work. The reading is sponsored by the Odyssey Bookshop and the Inclusiveness Program.

According to Shah, Dragon Ladies is different from other books on Asian American women in that "it focuses explicitly on the political perspectives of Asian American women, describing a growing social movement and an emerging way of looking at the world." She explains that "it is not that our lives are so similar in substance, but that our lives are all monumentally shaped by three major driving forces in U.S. society: racism and patriarchy most immediately, and ultimately, imperial aggression against Asia as well."

The book's sections on strategies and visions, an agenda for change, global perspectives, and awakening to power address various aspects of emerging Asian American feminist analysis. In the hands of Shah and the other contributors, the stereotype of a "dragon lady"--an overbearing, usually Asian, woman--is transformed from a cold-blooded reptile to a powerful creature who breathes fire.