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Emma Gee

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Emma Gee
Gee at a 1980 gathering of the Pacific Asian American Women Writers West
Born1939
DiedApril 15, 2023
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley - M.A.
Occupation(s)Scholar, Activist, Writer
Known forCo-originator of the term Asian American; Co-founder of the Asian American Political Alliance
SpouseYuji Ichioka

Emma Gee (1939 - April 15, 2023) was an American activist and writer, best known for helping to coin the term "Asian American" and co-founding the Asian American Political Alliance with her later husband, Yuji Ichioka.[1][2]

After establishing the first-ever AAPA chapter in Berkeley, California, Gee was influential in guiding the organization through social advocacy, notably by supporting the Third World Liberation Strikes of 1968 and helping to extend AAPA across California and to Columbia.[3][4] Gee is widely credited with collaborating with fellow AAPA activists, including Vicci Wong, Lilian Fabros, and Penny Nakatsu, to ensure that women activists held leadership roles as part of the organization's broader goal of inclusivity.[4]

Gee later entered academia as a professor at UC Berkeley and UCLA, where she taught some of the first Asian American studies courses at both institutions, including the first-ever course focused on Asian women.[5] She is also known for her writing contributions, notably editing and contributing to Asian Women (1971) and Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America (1976), the latter in collaboration with the Pacific Asian American Writers West.[6][7]

Early career and activism

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Forming AAPA

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In May of 1968, Gee and her future husband Yuji Ichioka, who were both graduate students at University of California, Berkeley, founded the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) in Berkeley, California.[1] Upon the founding of AAPA, the two coined the term "Asian American," resulting in its first known written use.[8][9][10][11][12]

Gee and Ichioka drew inspiration from the simultaneous social movements of the Black Power Movement, the American Indian Movement, and the opposition movements to the Vietnam War as they structured the foundations of AAPA.[12][13] The two additionally had a track record of activism even before AAPA, having circulated petitions to support the Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) in 1967, which further enforced AAPA's anti-war ideology.[14] Founding AAPA member Vicci Wong would recall that some of the Berkeley AAPA chapter's first participants, including herself, were recruited by Gee and Ichioka based on their traditionally-Asian surnames from local student rosters and the PFP petitions which had been circulated by the pair.[3][12] Gee and Ichioka sought to establish their own PFP-aligned caucus due to feelings of marginalization while supporting simultaneous social movements (namely the Black Power movement and Free Huey protests in the summer of 1968), which heavily influenced the formation of the inaugural AAPA chapter in Berkeley.[3]

AAPA was credited as one of the earliest recorded Asian American pan-ethnic alliances, bringing together Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipino American students among others.[11] Gee and Ichioka would later specify that the term "Asian American" and AAPA itself were intended to provide cohesion between "'all of us Americans of Asian descent'" during the intersectional civil rights movements of the 1960s.[13]

Gee and Ichioka's apartment on 2005 Hearst Avenue in Berkeley was the site of the first AAPA meeting in May of 1968, which contained six credited founding members in attendance.[3][15] In addition to Gee and Ichioka, there was Richard Aoki, a militant activist with the Black Panther Party and a fellow graduate colleague of Ichioka's; Floyd Huen, president of the Chinese Student Club at UC Berkeley; Victor Ichioka, Yuji's younger brother; and Vicci Wong, a UC Berkeley undergraduate student organizer with the SNCC and UFW in Salinas.[3][4] After the formation of AAPA, Gee, alongside collaborators Wong and Penny Nakatsu, took on early leadership roles, and women made up nearly forty percent of AAPA's early membership.[4] When Gee and Ichioka relocated to New York in August 1968, Wong took over a large part of the Berkely AAPA chapter operations in place of the couple, until the organization dissolved by 1970.[4]

Influence on the Asian American Movement

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As AAPA gained ground, the founding members including Gee played critical roles in helping kickstart the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), which was a significant catalyst behind the 1968-1969 UC Berkeley Third World Strike that ultimately succeeded in establishing the first ever Ethnic Studies and Asian Studies centers at an American public university.[3] After the success of the strikes, the Berkeley AAPA chapter began to struggle with membership retention, and sought to redirect their efforts towards strengthening Asian American Studies (AAS) and community project works.[14] Without the TWLF and the strikes as a guiding motive and with changes in AAPA leadership, the organization's campus chapters faded and declined in scale by 1970.[14]

AAPA, while short-lived as an organization, influenced the emergence of the Asian-American Movement (AAM) by the fall of 1968.[14] Gee had relocated to New York by the end of the summer of 1968 before the AAPA foundations grew into the AAM, but her influence on the latter movement remained apparent after AAPA’s 1970 disbanding.[14] Gee and Ichioka’s initial usage of the term “Asian American” was to combat racism and imperialism facing communities of Asian descent living in the United States by proliferating an umbrella term to connect a diverse array of individuals and diasporas.[2] After AAPA and as the later twentieth century ensued, the term became used more as a racial categorization than as a political coalition term that it was originally perceived as.[2] However, within discourses related to social movements, the term "Asian American" has maintained its connection to civil rights and grassroots activism, in a similar sense to Gee and Ichioka's original term definition.[4][15]

Gee’s domestic partnership and later marriage to Ichioka was seen by many as an example of an barrier-breaking pan-Asian union pushing against traditional segregation of Asian ethnic groups, with Gee being of Chinese descent and Ichioka of Japanese descent.[12][4][16] As the couple recruited for AAPA, their relationship to each other and later other initial AAPA participants including Lilian Fabros (of Filipino descent), Vicci Wong (of Chinese descent), and Richard Aoki (of Japanese descent) further emphasized the initial AAPA goal of pan-Asian ethnic unity, particularly with Gee and Ichioka's emphasis on inclusive recruitment methods.[4][16]

Later career

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Academic work

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Gee was instrumental in bringing together writings by Asian Americans, most notably as editor of the book Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America (1976), an anthology published by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.[17] Counterpoint served as one of the first textbooks in Asian American studies and remains a foundational work in the field.[14] Beyond her editorial contributions, Gee also taught some of the earliest classes in Asian American studies at UC Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles.[5]

Collaborative writing efforts

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Gee was also an advocate of Asian American women which included editing the book Asian Women (1971), developed from the first class ever taught on Asian Women in Berkeley.[5][6][18]

Pacific Asian American Women Writers West (PAAWWW)

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Throughout her life, Gee was deeply involved in promoting and nurturing Asian American literature and writing. In addition to her engagement with pan-Asian issues through the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA), she played a critical role in advancing the presence of Asian Americans in the literary field.[1][17][19] During the 1970s and 1980s, collectives of female writers and artists began to organize cultural and literary groups.[20] One of these groups was the Pacific Asian American Women Writers West, which is also known as PAAWWW (pronounced “pow”), or PAAWW–West, which was founded in 1978.[7]  Gee was among the earliest members of this collective, and would later become a chair on the PAAWWW board of directors.[21][19] Gee and PAAWWW as a collective, aimed to foster the artistic development of women writers of color and to preserve and promote Pacific Asian American literature, history, and art.[7]

What began as informal gatherings quickly solidified into a collective that, by 1980, included notable members such as Momoko Iko, Joyce Nako, Karen Saito, Miya Iwataki, Diane Takei, and Gee herself. The women in PAAWWW not only sought a platform for their own voices, but also aimed to reshape the portrayal of Pacific Asian Americans in mainstream media.[7] Gee, already a major advocate for Asian American writing–as evident by her prior editorial work– encouraged her fellow writers to share their poetry and prose with their communities.[7] Readings and presentations began at the Amerasia Bookstore, and the legacy of Gee’s vision has continued today, with PAAWWW members still being invited to panels and literary events.[7] Furthermore, Gee used her position in PAAWWW to collaborate with other Asian American writing collectives like the Amerasia Journal, on which she was a member of the advisory board.[19]

Beyond her literary advocacy, Gee was active in supporting other marginalized communities. Her specific passion for uplifting writers of color remained central to her, as demonstrated by her participation in PAAWWW readings alongside celebrated female poets like Wanda Coleman.

Later work and honors

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In 2004, UCLA's Asian American Studies Center established the "Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee Endowment for Social Justice and Immigration Studies" to honor Ichioka and Gee's contributions to the advancement of Asian Americans.[11] The endowment supports research-related activities that celebrate their contributions. One of the first recipients of support from the endowment was Grace Lee Boggs, a Chinese American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist, whom Gee met early in the 1963 March on Washington.[22] The endowment also provided key support for a student and community-based forum regarding the 30th anniversary of the freeing of Chol Soo Lee, a Korean American immigrant who was wrongfully convicted of murder.[22][23]

Gee died on April 15, 2023, at the age of 84.[1]

Works

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  • Gee, Emma, ed. (1971). Asian Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
  • Gee, Emma, ed. (1976). Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America. Los Angeles, CA: Asian American Studies Center.
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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Cross Currents. "Emma Gee" (PDF). UCLA Asian American Studies Center. Retrieved 24 June 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Naseem Rodríguez, Noreen (2019-03-04). ""Caught Between Two Worlds": Asian American Elementary Teachers' Enactment of Asian American History". Educational Studies. 55 (2): 214–240. doi:10.1080/00131946.2018.1467320. ISSN 0013-1946.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Wong, Victoria (2019-10-01). "Cultural/Political Activism and Ethnic Studies (1969–2019)". Ethnic Studies Review. 42 (2): 151–157. doi:10.1525/esr.2019.42.2.151. ISSN 2576-2915.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Fujino, Diane C. (2024-09-20). "Rhizomatic Organizing, Collective Leadership, and Community-Centered Pedagogy in the Early Asian American Movement". Journal of American Studies: 1–34. doi:10.1017/S0021875824000252. ISSN 0021-8758.
  5. ^ a b c Fujino, Diane Carol (2012). Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Paradoxical Life. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 185–186. ISBN 978-0-8166-7786-3.
  6. ^ a b Grice, Helen (2002). Negotiating Identities: An Introduction to Asian American Women's Writing. Manchester University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-7190-6031-1.
  7. ^ a b c d e f Wei, William (1993). The Asian American Movement. Temple University Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-1-56639-183-2.
  8. ^ Kaur, Harmeet. "The term 'Asian American' has a radical history". CNN. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  9. ^ White, Alexis (6 June 2022). "Clarified: Understanding Asian American identity". WDSU. Archived from the original on 19 December 2022. Retrieved 19 December 2022.
  10. ^ Wallace, Nina (2017-05-08). "Yellow Power: The Origins of Asian America". Densho: Japanese American Incarceration and Japanese Internment. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  11. ^ a b c Cheng, Cheryl (15 March 2021). "The Asian American Studies Center's Enduring Legacy". UCLA. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  12. ^ a b c d Kambhampaty, Anna (22 May 2020). "In 1968, These Activists Coined the Term 'Asian American'—And Helped Shape Decades of Advocacy". Time. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  13. ^ a b Madore, Michelle R.; Kaseda, Erin; Chin, Laurie; Tan, Alexander; Wong, Christina G.; Lee, Jennifer; Thaler, Nicholas; Gee, Stephanie; Al-Dasouqi, Hanaa; Irani, Farzin (2023-07-04). "Future directions in neuropsychology: Training, education, clinical practice, and advocacy for Asians and Asian Americans". The Clinical Neuropsychologist. 37 (5): 1097–1113. doi:10.1080/13854046.2023.2192416. ISSN 1385-4046.
  14. ^ a b c d e f Fujino, Diane (2024-04-01). "Political Asian AmericaAfro-Asian Solidarity, Third World Internationalism, and the Origins of the Asian American Movement". Ethnic Studies Review. 47 (1): 60–97. doi:10.1525/esr.2024.47.1.60. ISSN 1555-1881.
  15. ^ a b Hossaini, Sara (2018-11-12). "50 Years Later, Former UC Berkeley Students Celebrate the Asian-American Movement They Began | KQED". www.kqed.org. Retrieved 2025-05-20.
  16. ^ a b "Day 51: Emma Gee & Yuri Ichioka, Asian American Political Alliance & Coining "Asian American", UCLA, California". APIAHiP. Retrieved 2025-05-13.
  17. ^ a b Choy, P. P. (1 December 1977). "Review: Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America, by Emma Gee". California History. 56 (4): 370–371. doi:10.2307/25139130. JSTOR 25139130.
  18. ^ Leong, Russell (2014). Asian American Sexualities: Dimensions of the Gay and Lesbian Experience. Routledge. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-134-71778-1.
  19. ^ a b c "About Amerasia Journal". AMERASIA JOURNAL. 2010-09-10. Retrieved 2025-05-14.
  20. ^ Tewari, Nita; Alvarez, Alvin N. (2008-10-06). Asian American Psychology: Current Perspectives. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-136-67802-8.
  21. ^ Gee, Emma (1982-10-01). "Poems of Angel Island". Amerasia Journal. 9 (2): 83–88. doi:10.17953/amer.9.2.363jkj7656623761. ISSN 0044-7471.
  22. ^ a b Yamamoto, J.K. (2014-06-18). "UCLA Asian American Studies Center Celebrates Ichioka/Gee Endowment". Rafu Shimpo. Retrieved 2025-05-15.
  23. ^ "45th | AASC". www.aasc.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2025-05-15.
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