The Book of Awesome Asian Women: Empresses, Warriors, Scientists, and Mavericks (Famous Asian Women in History) - Softcover

Diggs, Karen Wang

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1684817234 ISBN 13: 9781684817238

Publisher: Books That Save Lives, 2025

Synopsis

Celebrating the Legacy of Strong Asian Women

The Book of Awesome Asian Women illuminates the stories of powerful Asian women who have shaped history, providing inspiration and recognition to their incredible contributions across the globe.

A Crucial Addition to Women's History. In a world where the accomplishments of women are finally being celebrated, The Book of Awesome Asian Women brings much-needed attention to the underrepresented stories of Asian women throughout history. This book continues the legacy of the successful “Awesome Women” series by amplifying the voices of those who have often been overlooked or misrepresented. Perfect for anyone seeking gifts for Asian women or gifts for girls, this book ensures these important stories are shared.

Empowering Stories for a New Generation. Authored by Karen Wang Diggs, a passionate advocate for social justice and gender equality, this book delves into the lives of Asian women and girls who have left indelible marks on the world. Karen’s dedication to uncovering and sharing these lesser-known stories makes this book an empowering resource for readers seeking representation and inspiration. The Book of Awesome Asian Women is an essential read for those interested in famous women in history and Asian American books.

Inside, you’ll find:

• Inspiring stories of famous women in history, from empresses like Wu Ze Tian to groundbreaking scientists and artists like Dr. Soyeon Yi and Amy Tan; perfect for anyone looking for a female artists book or notable female scientists.
• Empowerment through representation, offering young adult to adult readers the chance to see themselves in the legacies of strong women who defied the odds, including the often-misunderstood "dragon lady" archetype.
• A rich addition to your collection of women’s history books.

If you liked Women Who Dared, Women in White Coats, or The Book of Awesome Women, you’ll love The Book of Awesome Asian Women.

About this title

About the Authors

Karen Wang Diggs is the author of 10 Super Asian Women Who Shaped History. Her books explore forgotten women in history, emphasizing Asian women and girls. Themes of social justice, gender equality, and race equality infuse every aspect of her work. Karen describes herself as a ‘history hound.’ History has fascinated her since she was a child, and she has always been obsessed with uncovering the truth hidden between the pages of history books. Behind every date and every significant event in history, there is a catalog of untold stories, and she’s always been passionate about digging them up and understanding the people behind the events. 

As a woman, Karen is passionate about discovering and sharing the injustices faced by women throughout history. She wants to empower women and girls to change the future and strive for absolute parity between the sexes. Her work is dedicated to sharing lesser-told stories to show the world that strong women have always been, and always will be, crucial to the future of the world. 

Karen was born in Hong Kong but grew up in Hawaii. She was raised by a single mother whose strength and resilience fed into her passion for uncovering the stories of strong women throughout history. Karen loves reading and enjoys indulging in her book addiction. Professionally, Karen is a classically trained chef and Certified nutritionist. She is also continuing to expand her education by pursuing a degree in Anthropology.

Becca Anderson comes from a long line of teachers and preachers from Ohio and Kentucky. The teacher side of her family led her to become a woman's studies scholar and to her career writing about awesome women. A multiple-time bestselling author, Becca Anderson is known for many things, including her books Badass Affirmations and The Book of Awesome Women, her Your Blessings blog and Every Day Thankful Facebook page, as well as her many appearances on both national and bay area tv and radio shows such as ABC, NBC, and NPR. She credits her spiritual practice and daily prayer with helping her recover from cancer. An avid collector of affirmations, meditations, prayers and blessings, she helps run a "Gratitude and Grace Circle" that meets monthly at homes, churches and bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area where she currently resides. Becca Anderson shares prayers and affirmations, inspirational writings and suggested acts of kindness at https://thedailyinspoblog.wordpress.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Trung Sisters

Every year, on the sixth day of the second lunar month, the inhabitants of Hanoi visit the Hai Ba Trung Temple. They bring fresh flowers, food offerings, and prayers as burning incense fills the air with the heady scents of frankincense, cinnamon, cedar, and cloves. This commemoration has been going on year after year without fail for generations. 2022 marked the 1,982nd anniversary of this observance! Isn’t that incredible? What persons or events could cause such devotion to endure for nearly two thousand years?

Well, the origin of such devotion is based upon the heroic actions of two sisters who fought for their country's independence from a dominating force that sought to annihilate their indigenous cultures. These sisters also overcame patriarchal prejudices regarding the ability of women to wield military might and hold political power; they even galvanized a formidable army of 80,000 volunteer fighters led by female generals, one of whom was none other than their own mother. The Trung sisters and their ancestors hailed from the Northern region and were part of an ancient tribe known as Lac Viet. They lived among majestic mountains transitioning to highlands covered in thick jungles and rich, fertile soil ideal for cultivating rice and other verdant food crops. For this reason, and because this area was geographically strategic for trading supplies with other countries in Asia, including India and even the Roman Empire, the rulers of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE) in China wanted to gain complete control of this region for their own benefits and profits.

In the area where the Trung sisters lived, there was an extremely corrupt Chinese overlord named Su Ding, whom Emperor Guangwu of China appointed.

The older sister, Trung Trac, was married to the son of another Lac Viet aristocrat from a nearby territory. His name was Thi Sach. Like Trung Trac, he, too, was proud and protective of his Vietnamese ancestry and keenly resented the colonization by China. After their marriage, Trung Trac encouraged her husband, who was described as having a fierce temperament, to take action against the tyrant Su Ding. Thi Sach made several attempts to raise an insurgency by organizing villagers to rebel against the onerous Chinese overlord. Unfortunately, Thi Sach was arrested and then beheaded without even the pretense of a trial.

The sudden and unjust death of Thi Sach caused Trung Trac and her sister Trung Nhi to take up the battle cry for justice and rebellion. Although Trac grieved deeply for her beloved husband, she refused to wear traditional mourning attire so as not to present a demoralizing image to her people. At this momentous juncture, the sisters did not hesitate to do the right and courageous thing.

And here is the most remarkable part of the uprising: while many, both men and women, answered the call of the Trung sisters, 36 women, including their mother, were chosen to be generals. In their honor, the names of the female warriors who led the rebellion are recorded in temples dedicated to the Trung sisters.

These female warriors led an army of 80,000 fighters, successfully driving the Chinese out of Vietnam. It is recorded that the hated Chinese overlord Su Ding, who executed Trung Trac’s husband, was so terrified by this army led by women that he shaved his beard, cut his hair, and disguised himself as a beggar and fled back to the safety of the Han government in China. In just over a year (from 40 CE), the sisters and their army liberated 65 villages and dismantled fortresses built by the Chinese.

Eventually, however, the sheer military size of the Han Dynasty was too much for the Trung sisters and their contingent. They were out-armed and outnumbered. Before the rising of the second full moon in 43 CE, the Trung sisters were cornered in an area around the Hat Giang River located just North of Hanoi. Rather than allowing themselves to be captured, the Trung sisters chose the traditional Vietnamese alternative, maintaining their dignity. They chose their own method, which was departure by suicide. Many believe that they drowned themselves in the river, and others tend toward the popular folklore, which cites that they disappeared into the clouds.

Although the Trung sisters’ heroic efforts to free Vietnam from the shackles of Chinese domination ultimately failed, their sacrifice was not in vain. From the time of their death until now, which spans almost two millennia, these two women are still remembered and revered for their actions. Stories, poems, and plays of the Trung sisters continue to be sources of pride for the people of Vietnam. In particular, women look upon them as shining symbols of female strength and courage.

Lakshmi Bai—the Rani of Jhansi

Lakshmi Bai, born Marnikarnika Tambe, is one of India’s national heroines. Raised in a household of boys, she was fearless and brilliant as a military strategist. When her husband, a maharaja (prince), died, she came out of purdah (seclusion) to fight the British, becoming the key figure extraordinaire who took special care in training women as skilled fighters for her army. These women came to be known as the “amazons of Jhansi.” Lakshmi herself was famous for calmly taunting enemy generals by declaring, “Do your worst, I will make you a woman.” Her fame spread like wildfire throughout India, making her their national shero, after she broke through an encircling ambush of British soldiers during battle and escaped on horseback to a rebel rendezvous point a hundred miles away in just twenty-four hours with a ten-year-old boy clinging to her back. She and the boy were the only two survivors of the slaughtered Indian troops. It should also be noted that Lakshmi was in full armor in the sweltering 120-degree heat. She died on the battlefield in Gwalior in 1858 when she was barely thirty; a British general called her the “greatest hero” he’d ever known.

Dr. Maggie Lim—Paving the Path for Planned Parenthood

Although Maggie Lim was born into one of Singapore’s most elite and established families, she did not just sit back and luxuriate in wealth and high society. Instead, she worked tirelessly on behalf of unprivileged women and girls and was an activist who paved the way for a woman’s right to choose.

Maggie was very smart. She skipped several grades and graduated from the equivalent of high school at twelve! She was encouraged to apply for the Queen’s Scholarship but had to wait several years because candidates needed to be at least sixteen. Once old enough, she entered the previously all-male training program for the scholarship and won, becoming the only female winner in the scholarship’s forty-five-year history. She then left for England to study medicine at the London School of Medicine for Women and the Royal Free Hospital.

When she returned to Singapore and started her medical practice, Dr. Lim was shocked time and time again by how so many women were drained by childbirth and poverty. Some of them even begged her to buy their newborn infant because they had no means of supporting another baby.

In addition, she also had to deal with the horrible medical consequences that women suffered from botched abortions. Because of her firsthand experiences, Dr. Lim became a strong advocate for birth control access, but it wasn’t an easy path. She had to battle centuries of cultural orthodoxy that obliterated female individuality and sovereignty over their own bodies. The very ideas that women could take charge of their fertility and possibly even enjoy sex without procreation were seen as subversive and rebellious.

Dr. Lim and her staff had to withstand verbal assaults like, “Burn in hell for the wickedness of interfering with nature,” and they were accused of “corrupting the young and scheming to depopulate the earth.”

After Dr. Lim retired from her medical practice in Singapore, she entered a second phase of her career as a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hawaii and as the president of Hawaii Planned Parenthood. In 2014, she was posthumously inducted into Singapore’s Hall of Fame.

“My mother, Maggie Lim, was a woman ahead of her time, a trailblazer who understood that the well-being of any nation begins with the release of women from subjugation: the subjugation of ignorance, ill health, impoverishment, and the inability to regulate their own fertility. In this regard, the biggest gift my mother made to the world was that she was a forerunner of the women of generations to come.”

—Dr. Patricia Lim (daughter of Dr. Maggie Lim)

Cherrie Atilano—Champion for Female Farmers

While most twelve-year-old girls were hanging around with their friends and fussing about how to put on makeup or use a curling iron, Cherrie Atilano was out teaching sugar cane farmers how to grow their own food, compost food waste, and adopt more financially and environmentally sustainable practices.

Her father was a sugar planter, and young Cherrie loved to join in the work of planting and harvesting along with the workers. Unfortunately, her father died when she was still a child, so her family suffered financially. Her mother then had to care for Cherrie, her five siblings, and six adopted children all on her own. As a result, Cherrie’s mom sent her to a scholarship center to learn practical skills such as cooking, sewing, and gardening.

Cherrie found a book on high-intensive gardening at the scholarship center’s library. She learned, “When you’re poor, 100 percent of your income goes to food, allocated 70 percent to rice and 30 percent [to other food items aka] viand. However, when you know how to plant vegetables, you will save this 30 percent that may be used to send your children to school and have a roof over your head.” This knowledge sparked a revelation in the precocious preteen, who realized that although there were many farmers where she lived, they all labored to grow and harvest sugarcane and did not grow their own food. Having learned about gardening and growing food at the scholarship center, she soon took steps to turn her knowledge into action.

For her twelfth birthday, Cherrie asked her mom for a bicycle; then she was able to visit sugar cane farmers in her free time. Cherrie taught them how to grow food in their backyard so they could save money and then use that savings to send their kids to school. This was a way to end the cycle of poverty that plagued many farmers.

At fifteen, Cherrie was chosen for a scholarship to study agriculture at Visayas State University. She recalls those years as the most exciting time of her life as she juggled school, maintaining her scholarship, working part-time, sending money home to help her family, and taking on leadership positions at the university.

After graduation, Cherrie Atilano was quickly hired by a leading company to help them implement the best land practices with sustainable landscaping projects. Through her work, she always emphasized the need to respect farmers and compensate them fairly.

In 2014, Atilano was invited to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, who advised her to “Capitalize on your passion.” When she returned home, she founded Agrea, an innovative, agriculture-based business committed to empowering female farmers and promoting sustainability through food security and zero-waste initiatives.

Agrea has received many acknowledgements, including the United Nations’ Global Compact Agriculture Business Excellence Award in 2017, the ASEAN Rural Poverty Eradication Leadership Award in 2019, and the COVID-19 Action Champion Award at the UN Women 2020 Asia-Pacific WEPs Awards.

As a child, Cherrie Atilano loved farming and had a clear vision of how she could improve it. She has grown up to become an agricultural activist and advocate, CEO of Agrea, and the UN’s ambassador for nutrition.

“In the coming years, I am so excited to globally advocate for food and nutrition security as well as the promotion of regenerative agriculture.”

—Cherrie Atilano

Grace Lee Boggs—100 Years of Activism

“We are not subversives. We are struggling to change this country because we love it.”

—Grace Lee Boggs

Grace Lee Boggs (born Grace Chin Lee) spent her entire life working for social justice and racial equality. She was born in 1915 in Rhode Island and died in 2015 in Detroit. Her parents were immigrants from China, and she and her siblings led a comfortable middle-class life. She entered Barnard College at sixteen and went on to earn a PhD in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College. She was especially drawn to the works of Marx, Hegel, and Margaret Mead.

Despite her stellar academic credentials, she wasn’t able to get a decent job due to discrimination against “Orientals.” Eventually, she got a position at a library in Chicago that paid only $10 per week. The only apartment she could afford was a tiny basement in a rat-infested ghetto neighborhood. Her experiences there opened her eyes to the plight of the marginalized.

One day, as she walked through her neighborhood, she encountered a group of people protesting poor living conditions, including the rat-infested housing. This encounter connected her with the Black community for the first time, and she realized that collective action was needed to effect changes for marginalized communities. In the 1950s, she moved to Detroit, where she edited Correspondence, a radical newspaper that was part of the movement for a worker-based revolution.

In 1953, Grace Lee met James Boggs, a charismatic and radical African American auto worker, activist, and intellectual from Alabama. She asked him to dinner, and that same evening, he proposed to her. Their marriage would last for forty years until James’ death in 1993. They were partners in life, philosophy, and activism. They influenced and had meaningful dialogues with the most important human rights activists of the twentieth century, including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis. During the upheavals of the 1960s, she and her husband were among of the city’s most noted activists, promoting issues that included environmentalism, feminism, Black Power, and labor and civil rights. The FBI had a thick file on Grace Lee Boggs for the many rallies and protests that she attended.

She was a prolific writer and wrote many books, including The Next American Revolution and Living for Change, an autobiography. She turned her humble home in Detroit into a hub for discussions and creative solutions to the most pressing social issues of our time. In her later years, she created Detroit Summer, a program that connected hundreds of young volunteers to local neighborhoods where they planted community gardens and worked with schoolchildren. She also helped create the Boggs Center, an organization committed to helping activists develop into leaders and critical thinkers.

In 2012, there was a documentary made about Boggs by documentarian Grace Lee (not a relative or connected to Grace Lee Boggs), American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. Boggs remained active and involved with her many community-based initiatives until just before her death at 100.

Edition details

• Publisher: Books That Save Lives
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1684817234
• ISBN 13: 9781684817238
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 268