<Begin Segment 29>

AI: Well, you know, also in the period of the late '60s, so much was going on in the late '60s because there was the Civil Rights movement was still going strong, the anti-Vietnam War movement had risen up and then also at that time you were, it sounds like, doing quite a bit of reading of the feminist poets, and at that time you were --

MY: Yes. It was also, I think I had written an essay about the Asian American women. I had become so involved in the white women's liberation movement, because in fact that's what it was. And I was usually the only "token," you know, and I got tired of being the token. And then there was a period when I thought well, okay, it's okay to be a token. At least there's a token, you know. But then after that period, past that period, you said, "Well, okay, it's time that there was more than a token." And so we had a meeting. I think Nellie Wong and a few of us met, and we invited some young people, young Asian women, who were younger than us, who were somewhat disillusioned with the women's movement because it seemed to be a white liberation, women's liberation movement; that it didn't include the issues of the, of Asian Americans. And they were being constantly asked, "Are you an Asian first, or are you a woman?" You know, that kind of... and so we thought that we should deal with that question. And then when I started to... I joined the Multiethnic Literature of the United States group and they had a component, they had a few workshops -- there was a white woman by the name of Katharine Newman who had written a book of Asian American women's short stories, I think -- edited it. She was one of the few, first people to become aware of the need for this segment within the women's movement. And so she was the one who, from MELUS, from Multiethnic Literature in the United States, she was sending me to the Modern Language Association conferences which were going on in New York and Chicago, and on the East Coast and the West Coast. And I was doing that every year for about two or three years, giving papers. And I'm not a scholar, I'm not a... maybe I was trying to be, but I was not a very good one. But I was writing these papers about Asian American women writers' awareness of their writings and there were few writing. And Katharine actually had to twist my arm because the conference was always in between Christmas and New Year's. And it totally ruined my Christmases because I was very insecure about my papers and I had to write it over and over. Because I felt I was -- and there were going to be all these scholars in the audience and they're going to find me out, whatever... [Laughs] I don't have a Ph.D., I only had a master's degree so I just, so I just had all these insecurities about doing this, but Katharine said, "You're the only one, you're the only one who can do it." So I was doing that and then I noticed that there were always about 600 some workshops at the MLA about all different kinds of things that were going on, and the Asian American Women Writers segment that I was doing was like 641st session, the last day at eight o'clock in the morning or something like that. By that time half, most of the people are leaving... I'm sure you've been to these conferences. In the morning, it was at the Sheraton Hotel in New York, I had my sheaf of paper, I was going to my workshop, to give my paper, and I passed by the lobby and there was this long line of people checking out. "Why am I doing this? There's not going to be anybody there," there were just a few people there, but -- I mean there were quite a few people there but -- I remember thinking, you know, "Why am I doing this?"

So then the following year, I think it was about 1981, we -- I don't know if I have it in here -- [referring to written notes] I, Katharine and I and another friend, Helen Jaskoski got together and we decided to have a separate Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States conference, and have people of color, and their writings, gather together. And never mind the MLA, we just were always being treated like stepchildren with them. So we decided to do this and so now, the MELUS has a conference about every two years in different parts of the country, actually. In 1992, a few years ago, I think about two years ago, my writing group that I have, went to do a reading there and things like that. So it's been kind of gratifying to see this organization growing and having that part of, something that you kind of thought about, to grow in the way that it did.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.