Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference
Illuminates a transformational event in the development of Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms

In November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women’s Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women’s agenda. In Moving Mountains, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Adrienne Winans center the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women’s rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state.

Foregrounding figures like Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink and poet Mitsuye Yamada, Wu and Winans position AA and PI women as central actors in the era’s feminist politics, engaging with, and at times resisting, state institutions to forge paths toward racial and gender justice. From Guam to New York, the women articulated intersecting demands—for inclusion, sovereignty, labor rights, and education reform—at a moment when conservative backlash and racial realignment were reframing feminist movements. More than a recovery of voices, this book offers a layered analysis of coalition and tension between Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms, complicating assumptions of unity and illustrating how feminist praxis evolved through disagreement, difference, and shared commitment.

This book is vital reading for anyone interested in feminist history, Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, and the unfinished work of collective liberation.

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Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference
Illuminates a transformational event in the development of Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms

In November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women’s Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women’s agenda. In Moving Mountains, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Adrienne Winans center the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women’s rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state.

Foregrounding figures like Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink and poet Mitsuye Yamada, Wu and Winans position AA and PI women as central actors in the era’s feminist politics, engaging with, and at times resisting, state institutions to forge paths toward racial and gender justice. From Guam to New York, the women articulated intersecting demands—for inclusion, sovereignty, labor rights, and education reform—at a moment when conservative backlash and racial realignment were reframing feminist movements. More than a recovery of voices, this book offers a layered analysis of coalition and tension between Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms, complicating assumptions of unity and illustrating how feminist praxis evolved through disagreement, difference, and shared commitment.

This book is vital reading for anyone interested in feminist history, Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, and the unfinished work of collective liberation.

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Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference

Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference

Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference

Moving Mountains: Asian American and Pacific Islander Feminisms and the 1977 National Women's Conference

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Overview

Illuminates a transformational event in the development of Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms

In November 1977, over twenty thousand participants, mostly women, gathered in Houston for the first and only US National Women’s Conference, funded by the federal government with the goal of creating a national women’s agenda. In Moving Mountains, Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Adrienne Winans center the more than eighty Asian American and Pacific Islander delegates who politically mobilized around women’s rights and other issues to transform their communities and their status in the nation-state.

Foregrounding figures like Congresswoman Patsy Takemoto Mink and poet Mitsuye Yamada, Wu and Winans position AA and PI women as central actors in the era’s feminist politics, engaging with, and at times resisting, state institutions to forge paths toward racial and gender justice. From Guam to New York, the women articulated intersecting demands—for inclusion, sovereignty, labor rights, and education reform—at a moment when conservative backlash and racial realignment were reframing feminist movements. More than a recovery of voices, this book offers a layered analysis of coalition and tension between Asian American and Pacific Islander feminisms, complicating assumptions of unity and illustrating how feminist praxis evolved through disagreement, difference, and shared commitment.

This book is vital reading for anyone interested in feminist history, Asian American and Pacific Islander activism, and the unfinished work of collective liberation.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780295754291
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Publication date: 11/11/2025
Pages: 232
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu is Chancellor’s Professor of the Departments of History and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine, where she also serves as an associate dean in the School of Humanities and faculty director of the Humanities Center. She is coauthor of Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress. Adrienne A. Winans is an independent scholar.

What People are Saying About This

Karen Leong

"This compelling study fills a gap in Asian American studies scholarship, highlighting the stories of many hitherto unknown AAPI women activists and persuasively arguing that the Asian American movement extended through the 1980s. Moving Mountains significantly contributes to the history of AAPI women’s national and territorial political activism during the Cold War, and fills a critical need in the scholarship of women of color feminisms, women and politics, and histories of US grassroots activism and social movements."

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