Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora:
Troubling Borders in Literature and Art
We seek support to publish an anthology on the writings and art of Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora. We collected and selected among the best essays, poems and artworks from around the world. The manuscript has 210 pages and 55 color images of artworks. We are working with an university press to increase the chances for our anthology to be taught in universities and make visible at a national and international level these very important voices and talents. It is unfortunately very expensive to publish color images and it is up to us to raise the needed amount. Our goal is to publish 1,000 copies of the book. Our audience will be scholars and students, artists and activists. The book will be the first of its kind.
Troubling Borders features work by women of Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese, Thai and Filipina descent, as well as women from minority groups such as the ethnic Chinese and Indians in Southeast Asia, and the often stateless Mien, Hmong, and Cham in many regions of the world. There are hundreds of thousands of women of Southeast Asian descent in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world. As an incredibly diverse group, our voices make visible the ruptures caused by colonization, wars, globalization, and militarization. Our stories are vital and varied. They provide a sharp contrast to normative narratives and ideologies that have historically been constructed by the West and the nation-states of Southeast Asia. Too often Southeast Asian women are represented as exotic sex symbols and dragon ladies, prostitutes and “bar girls” in movies and the media. By publishing these works and pushing the boundaries of literature and art, we want to demonstrate the global connections that bring such disparate groups of women together. We hope that this collection will inspire, empower and unify future generations of Southeast Asian women of the diaspora through the arts.
But in order to do this, we need your financial help so that we can publish the color images of artworks. Please aid us in spreading the word that the group of women we highlight in the book creates stories that need to be told and retold. Donations in all sizes are graciously accepted and tax deductible.
Please send check to: Intersection for the Arts, for: DVAN/Anthology, 925 Mission Street, Suite 109, San Francisco, CA 94103
Editors: Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, Lan Duong, Mariam B.Lam, Kathy Nguyen
Main sponsor: Pacific Links
Individual donors: Lucille Panet-Raymond, Jerome L. Dodson, Christine Harris, Azizah Ahmad, Leo Ching, Nguyen Tan Hoang, Trang Tran, Hanh Tran, Anne Le, Chia Y Vang, Sandy Le, Suzan Tran (Sunrise Seagull Productions), Dan Duffy, Mary Louise Bailey-Meissner, May Ly, Linda Tran, Galina Hale, Quan Tran, Bernadine Hernandez, Joseph Cruz.
Special thanks to: Bao Truong, Aya Miyazaki, Viet Le
UCR has an exhibit centered around the anthology until October 7 (see front page of the website). To see photos of the exhibit click here.)