Making More Waves: New Writing by Asian American Women

A collection of essays, poetry, fiction, and memoirs, most not published previously, by Asian American women of all ages explores the experiences of such women, among them artists, lesbians, and labor leaders.

When Asian Women United of California gathered fiction and nonfiction by Asian American women of many ethnicities in Making Waves (1989), the group had no idea its collection would be adopted by educators, generating enough royalties to fund video documentaries and other projects as well as spadework for this new collection. From nearly a thousand submissions received in response to requests through Asian American Studies programs and community groups and media, an editorial advisory board selected just under four dozen pieces--prose and poetry, fiction and nonfiction, essays, memoirs, and reportage--filled, as the editors' preface suggests, "with surprises that open spaces for speaking about the past in new ways, as well as for dreaming of alternative practices in the present and future." A collection as diverse as the communities whose voices it shares and celebrates. Mary Carroll

In this new anthology of writing by Asian American women, Kim, Lilia V. Villanueva, and Asian Women United of California expand considerably on Making Waves (Cornell Univ., 1993) to produce a wonderful collection of fresh new stories, poems, memoirs, and essays. Included are thought-provoking poems about discarded, unwanted babies and the ravages of war by established poets such as Chitra Divakarum (Black Candle, Calyx, 1991) and Kimiko Hahn (Unbearable Heart, Kaya Prod., 1995). Susan Ito, a new writer, movingly expresses the heart of being a "Hambun-Hambun" literally half-and-half: a white and Japanese child/woman in America. A scholarly excerpt from Sumi Cho's Critical Race Feminism (New York Univ., 1997) might be too erudite for the lay reader, but other eloquent reflections such as Nora Okja Cobb Keller's "The Brilliance of Diamonds"?the story of how she got her name?and Hershini Bhana's gripping poem about rape are further examples of the diversity in this book. Recommended for large public and academic libraries.?Janis Williams, Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio
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