Juliana Pegues is an American writer, performer and community activist living in Minnesota. [1]
Born in Taiwan and raised in Alaska, Pegues has been a member of both the women of color theater group Mama Mosaic and Mango Tribe, a national Asian Pacific Islander American women's performance collective.
Her one-woman shows: Made In Taiwan, First the Forest, and Fifteen were presented respectively by the Walker Art Center, the Jerome Foundation Performance Art Commission, and Intermedia Arts. Her work has also been presented at the Pillsbury House Theater, and The Southern Theater. David Mura directed her play "Q and A" at Mixed Blood Theatre. [2] Her poetry has been published in several anthologies and in the Asian American Renaissance Journal, Mizna, and Lodestar Quarterly. Her writings also include White Rice: A Search for Identity and pieces for the Fab Feminist Zine.
Her poetry has been featured at numerous open mics and cabarets across the country.
She has worked for such groups as Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, Women Against Military Madness, Asian American Renaissance, APLB (Asian Pacific Lesbians and Bisexuals)- Twin Cities, and the Women's Prison Book Project.
She is the author of the chapbook Immigrant Dictionary.
Pegues is the recipient of many awards and honors including a Playwright's Center Many Voices fellow, and hosted AARGH, the Asian American Cabaret with Sandy Agustin.
In 1993, she and performance artist Ken Choy were arrested for protesting a performance of Madame Butterfly at the Minnesota Opera. Both were charged with disorderly conduct and paid a $25 fine. [3]
In 2021, she joined Cornell University's English Department as an associate Professor. Her research areas include Asian American studies, Native and Indigenous studies, women of color feminism, and queer of color critique. [4]
Pegues is the author of “Space-Time Colonialism: Alaska’s Indigenous and Asian Entanglements,” published with University of North Carolina Press in June 2021. The book received the 2022 Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize and the 2022 Sally and Ken Owens Award. [5]
Haunani-Kay Trask was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, poet, and a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She was professor emerita at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she founded and directed the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. A published author, Trask wrote scholarly books and articles, as well as poetry. She also produced documentaries and CDs. Trask received awards and recognition for her scholarship and activism, both during her life and posthumously.
Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn is an American playwright, writer, poet, and multimedia performance artist.
Cherríe Moraga is a Xicana feminist, writer, activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English since 2017, and in 2022 became a distinguished professor. Moraga is also a founding member of the social justice activist group La Red Xicana Indígena, which is network fighting for education, culture rights, and Indigenous Rights. In 2017, she co-founded, with Celia Herrera Rodríguez, Las Maestras Center for Xicana Indigenous Thought, Art, and Social Practice, located on the campus of UC Santa Barbara.
Number Eight is a female humanoid Cylon model on the television series Battlestar Galactica, a reimagining of the 1978 show of the same name. She is portrayed by Canadian-American actor Grace Park. Two prominent Number Eight copies serving as pilots on the Battlestar Galactica are Sharon Valerii and Sharon Agathon, using the call signs "Boomer" and "Athena", respectively. The call signs for both Sharons are references to two characters from the original Battlestar Galactica series: Viper pilot Lieutenant Boomer, played by Herbert Jefferson, Jr., and Lieutenant Athena, the daughter of Commander Adama, played by Maren Jensen.
Ka Vang is a Hmong-American writer in the United States. Vang was born on a CIA military base, Long Cheng, Laos, at the end of the Vietnam War, and immigrated to the United States in 1980. A fiction writer, poet, playwright, and former journalist, Vang has devoted much of her professional life to capturing Hmong folktales on paper. She is a recipient of the Archibald Bush Artist Fellowship and several other artistic and leadership awards. She is the author of the children's book, Shoua and the Northern Lights Dragon, a finalist for the 23rd Annual Midwest Book Awards in 2012.
May Lee-Yang, also known as May Lee, is a Hmong American playwright, poet, prose writer, performance artist and community activist in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. She was born in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand and moved to Minnesota as a child with her family. She is also the executive director of the non-profit organization Hmong Arts Connection.
Michelle Carla Cliff was a Jamaican-American author whose notable works included Abeng (1985), No Telephone to Heaven (1987), and Free Enterprise (2004).
Nellie Wong is an American poet and activist for feminist and socialist causes. Wong is also an active member of the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women.
Suheir Hammad is an American poet, author, and political activist.
Apo Hsu or Hsu Ching-hsin is a conductor born in Taiwan and resident of both Taiwan and the United States. Hsu served as music director of the National Taiwan Normal University Symphony Orchestra and the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in Springfield, Missouri. Her past appointments include serving as artistic director of The Women's Philharmonic in San Francisco, California, and conductor of the Oregon Mozart Players in Eugene, Oregon. She has been a mentor for many young conductors on both sides of the world through her work at NTNU and at The Conductor's Institute at Bard College in New York. Her performances have been featured in national broadcasts in the United States, Taiwan, and Korea.
Margo Tamez is a historian, poet, and activist from Texas. She is a member of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, an organization that does not have federal or state recognition.
Ken Choy is an American writer of Chinese-Native Hawaiian ethnicity. He also is a performance artist and actor and owns and operates a shopping business in Southern California.
Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is a Minnesota-based Lao American spoken word poet, playwright, and community activist. She was born in 1981 in a refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand. In 2020, she received a National Playwright Residency Program grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Waziyatawin is a Wahpetunwan Dakota professor, author, and activist from the Pezihutazizi Otunwe in southwestern Minnesota.
Native American feminism or Native feminism is, at its root, understanding how gender plays an important role in indigenous communities both historically and in modern-day. As well, Native American feminism deconstructs the racial and broader stereotypes of indigenous peoples, gender, sexuality, while also focusing on decolonization and breaking down the patriarchy and pro-capitalist ideology. As a branch of the broader Indigenous feminism, it similarly prioritizes decolonization, indigenous sovereignty, and the empowerment of indigenous women and girls in the context of Native American and First Nations cultural values and priorities, rather than white, mainstream ones. A central and urgent issue for Native feminists is the Missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.
Spiderwoman Theater is an Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Named after Spider Grandmother from Hopi mythology, it is the longest running Indigenous theatre company in the United States.
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is an American author, radio producer and professor. She is one of six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA). A Kanaka Maoli woman, Kauanui was raised in California. She was awarded a Fulbright (1994-1995) at the University of Auckland in New Zealand where she was affiliated with the Māori Studies department. Her research areas focus on indigeneity and race, settler colonialism, decolonization, anarchism, and gender and sexuality.
Kaohly Her is a Hmong-American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2019. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), Her represents District 64A, which includes parts of Saint Paul in Ramsey County, Minnesota.
Cynthia Ling Lee is an American dancer, choreographer, and scholar. She performs in contemporary, postmodern, and classical Indian dance techniques. Her research focuses on queer and postcolonial experiences in Asian diasporic performance.
Samantha Sencer-Mura is an American politician serving in the Minnesota House of Representatives since 2023. A member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), Sencer-Mura represents District 63A in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, which includes parts of Minneapolis in Hennepin County.