American Writers Speak Out on Feminism (2003)
with Merle Woo and MITSUYE YAMADA. Her works
were well received and Dreams in Harrison Railroad
Park is the most successful release in Kelsey Street
Press’s history. Wong continued to find support for
her creative output throughout the latter half of
her life, and she remained committed to using her
writing to further social justice. She used her suc-
cess as a writer to bring awareness of the issues af-
fecting women of color and Asian Americans, and
to educate society about these communities’ contri-
butions to activism and social justice. In 1983, with
Tillie Olsen as well as Alice Walker and other noted
writers of color, Wong traveled to China on the first
U.S. Women Writers Tour to China, sponsored by
the US-China Peoples Friendship Association. She
was also invited to read her poetry in China and
Cuba. During the 1980s and 1990s, Wong keynoted
at many national and regional conferences includ-
ing Third World Women and Feminist Perspectives
and the National Women’s Studies Association
Conferences. Wong has taught Women’s Studies at
the University of Minnesota and poetry writing at
Mills College in Oakland, California.
Her work has appeared in more than 200 an-
thologies, and in 1996, her poem “Song of Fare-
well” was installed on a San Francisco F-Line Muni
platform. Wong is featured in several film projects
such as Art as Revolution (2003) and is the sub-
ject, along with fellow Asian-American activist
and writer Yamada, of Mitsuye and Nellie, Asian
American Poets (1981). In 1998 Wong donated
her papers to California Ethnic and Multicultural
Archives (CEMA) at the University of California,
Santa Barbara.
Her insistence on the importance in bridging
activism and writing, as well as her contributions
to the study of race, gender, and class as intersect-
ing oppressions, paved the way for future Asian-
American writers, activists and thinkers. Her
poetry and essays made visible the contributions
by women of color to American history and high-
lighted the particular experiences of Asian-Ameri-
can women thus far ignored. Along with Cherrie
Moraga, Gloria Anzaldua, and Angela Davis, Wong
is an important member of what is now recognized
as the Third World Women of Color Movement.
Bibliography
Madsen, Deborah, ed. Asian American Writers. Farm-
ington Hills, Mich.: Thompson Gale, 2005.
Mohanty, Chandra Talpade, Ann Russo, Lourdes
Torres, eds. Third World Women and the Politics of
Feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1991.
Wong, Nellie, and Mitsuye Yamada. Mitsuye & Nellie,
Asian American Poets. Directed by Allie Light and
Irving Saraf. 58 min. Women Make Movies, 1986.
DVD/VHS.
Jinah KimWong, Rita (1968– )
Rita Wong spent her childhood in Calgary with
her Chinese immigrant parents, who owned a
local grocery store. Trained in the fields of English,
Asian studies, and archival studies, Wong has held
a variety of jobs: an English instructor in Japan
and China, a coordinator for the Alberta Network
of Immigrant Women, and an archivist with the
U’mista Cultural Centre in Alert Bay. Currently,
Wong is pursuing a Ph.D. in English at Simon Fra-
ser University.
One of the few openly bisexual Asian-American
women poets in North America, Wong has con-
tributed poetry and prose to journals such as Fire-
weed, Contemporary Verse 2, Kinesis, and Prairie
Fire as well as to books such as The Other Woman:
Women of Colour in Contemporary Canadian Lit-
erature and Hot and Bothered: Short Fiction on Les-
bian Desire. Wong’s most substantial work to date,
however, is her collection of poetry, Monkeypuzzle
(1998). Memories of the poet’s formative years
comprise the opening segment entitled “Memory
Palate.” As if to piece together an image of what it
means to grow up Chinese Canadian, Wong por-
trays her dull childhood days in the corridors of
her parents’ Sunset Grocery Store, her ancestors
who “live in the flicker of candle flames” (18), and
the night sounds of mah-jongg. The second and
most sizable chapter experiments with form by ex-
ploring the politics of language and power within
the superstructure of transnational capitalism. In
“Write about the Absence,” the poet writes thatWong, Rita 321