Elena Creef

Elena Tajima Creef is a Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Her latest book, "Shadow Traces: Seeing Japanese/American and Ainu Women in Photographic Archives" (U. Illinois Press 2022), offers compelling feminist readings of photographs showcasing indigenous Japanese Ainu women at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, picture brides at the turn of the century, incarcerated Japanese American Nisei women during WWII, and a post-war photo album kept by a Japanese war bride immigrant. Creef's interdisciplinary study builds a case for understanding the role of the camera in shaping how we both remember and see Asian women’s history in America. Her current work focuses on contemporary Lakota/Dakota horse rides to historical sites (Little Bighorn, Wounded Knee, Whitestone Hill) as well as a visual memoir based upon her essay, "Notes of a Fragmented Daughter" that originally appeared in Gloria Anzaldua's groundbreaking anthology, "Making Face, Making Soul: Haciendo Caras" (Aunt Lute Books, 1990) and was featured in "The Penguin Book of Women's Humor" (Penguin Books 1996).