Asian Descent > China Archives

Hop Lin Jong

Chinese immigrant in the early days of the White Australia Policy

Hsieh Hsüeh-hung

Champion of Taiwanese self-determination

In 1884, she tried to enroll her eight-year-old daughter Mamie at a white public school in San Francisco. When school authorities turned Mamie away because of her Chinese ancestry, Mary and her husband sued the Board of Education. The lawsuit became a landmark civil rights case for public school desegregation.

Wesa Wai-Sum Chau

Wesa Wai-Sum Chau is a dedicated advocate for cultural diversity, providing leadership in the disability, mental illness, women and international student communities.

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston chronicles the lives of Chinese Americans facing the ghosts of the past in present-day America.

Wu Man

Wu Man belongs to a rare group of musicians whose vivid brilliance, commanding personality, and range of expression has redefined their instrument, in her case, the pipa, a centuries-old, pear-shaped, four-stringed Chinese lute.

Dr Helena Liu

As an intersectional feminist academic and activist, Helena Liu set up Disorient, a website providing important learning, teaching and research resources on feminisms, intersectionality and activisms.

Sau Ung Loo Chan

As a Yale Law graduate and the first Asian American woman lawyer in Hawai’i, she became an advocate for Chinese Americans, restored U.S. citizenship for her family, and fought for broader immigrant rights.

Amy Tan

By bravely exploring experiences of immigrant families, heritage, memories, and poignant struggles, Amy Tan’s writing makes sense of the present through the past and adds ground-breaking narrative to the diverse sweep of American life and literature.