Originally posted as #SistoryLessons newsletter, May 15, 2026
To conclude AAPI Heritage Month, this edition of #SistoryLessons commemorates three women from East Asia whose stories are too little known—even within Asian communities, let alone beyond them: Ume Tsuda, Xue Jinqin (Sieh King King), and Pearl Mark Loo. In a moment when immigrant communities are being scapegoated, jailed, and expelled, when history is being erased from classrooms, and when the rights of women and minorities are under sustained assault, stories like these are sources of inspiration and, at the same time, warnings about why not to be complacent or unaware.
As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, it was an era of exclusion laws, detention, patriarchy, and empire—patterns hard-wired into many systems of power that we must remain ever-vigilant against today. Fully committed to their mission, these early 20th-century women meshed with the zeitgeist of the early U.S. feminist movement, finding venues and tools that assisted their quest for equality while remaining true to their cultural heritage and legacy. In recasting the narrative of who was "allowed" to shape the world, they set precedents in education, voting rights, and civic engagement that we can continue to learn from today.
Ume Tsuda: Envisioning a New Direction for Girls' Education
The Meiji Era (1868–1912) was a transformative moment of rapid modernization in Japan. The new government had already sent male students and officials abroad to study Western law, military strategy, medicine, and engineering—but reasoning held that if Japan was going to produce a modern, educated ruling class, those men needed modern, educated wives and mothers. A small cohort of Japanese girls was therefore sent to the U.S. as part of this modernizing experiment. Ume Tsuda, often known as Tsuda Umeko, was the youngest of the group, arriving at either five or seven years old and placed in the care of an American host family in Washington, D.C.
In 1882, Ume returned to her homeland and felt disoriented and out of place—she had forgotten much of her Japanese language, and returned to a society where women were still expected to remain within narrow roles: the "good wife," subservient and wise mother. Having become quite Americanized, Ume refused to accept the notion that women's education should be limited to domestic training. At age 24, in 1889, she returned to the United States for further study, helped raise funds to support other Japanese women studying abroad, and in 1900 founded a school for Japanese women emphasizing serious academic study, language skills, and economic self-reliance. That institution eventually became Tsuda University, one of Japan's most respected women's universities.
Devoutly Christian and dedicated to education and cultural ambassadorship, she also founded the Japanese YWCA and maintained correspondence with leading figures of her day, including Theodore Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and Florence Nightingale. Ume died in 1929 at the age of sixty-four; her portrait now appears on Japan's 5,000 yen banknote.
Reflection: What bridges are you building between cultures?
Xue Jinqin (a.k.a. Sieh King King): The Words That Needed to Be Spoken
Xue Jinqin, or in her English name Sieh King King, was a Chinese feminist who moved between China and the United States in the early 1900s, known for public lectures that challenged foot-binding, child marriage, and the denial of education to women in her homeland. At a time when Western audiences often indulged in cultural superiority, exoticizing Chinese women into a one-dimensional stereotype of oppression, Xue's critique of patriarchal practices also chastised Western arrogance. In her belief, the "liberation" of Chinese women was not a Western charity project; the women of her homeland deserved transformation, agency, and dignity just as their American and European counterparts sought for themselves.
In 1902, as a young foreign student in San Francisco, Xue delivered a major speech denouncing foot-binding and advocating for women's education and political participation. Newspaper reports describe her as poised, forceful, and unafraid to challenge both Chinese male elites and white American listeners in the same breath—an early example of trans-national feminism that, in its awareness of cultural competency, was ahead of its time.
Reflection: What speech needs to be made today?
Pearl Mark Loo: Early, and Largely Forgotten, Chinese American Suffragist
Pearl Mark Loo—known in Chinese as Mai Zhouyi (麦聊襡)—was a teacher and missionary from Canton (Guangzhou) who became one of the earliest Chinese American voices for women's suffrage and immigrant rights. She sailed from Guangzhou to join her husband, a New York restaurateur, in the early 1900s, but upon arrival in San Francisco she was detained at the wharf for more than forty days under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Once finally admitted, Pearl became active in the burgeoning women's movement. In 1903, she stood before a congregation of 1,500—Chinese and white, women and men—at Chinatown's Presbyterian Church in San Francisco to relate her experience of injustice. Nine years later, in 1912, she was one of the women marching up Fifth Avenue in what was then the largest suffrage parade the country had ever seen, wearing traditional dress as a member of the New York Chinatown delegation, making both a verbal and visual plea for citizenship and the vote for Chinese women—rights that would not be granted until 1943, with the passage of the Magnuson Act.
Reflection: What stories of attaining voting rights feel most important to share in this moment when the Supreme Court has basically gutted the 1964 Voting Rights Act?
Reflection and Action
In honor of Ume Tsuda: How has education—formal or informal—opened new doors for you?
Thinking about Xue Jinqin: How do you use your voice to push against what is "supposed" to be normal?
Reflecting on Pearl Mark Loo: What's the significance of speaking out for expanded rights, especially in a historical period where rights are being retrenched?
Activated Allies: Prompts and Actions for White Friends
In solidarity with Ume's students: Recognize Asian women educators and organizers as foundational to global feminist movements.
In response to Xue's insistence on nuance: Read about a feminist leader from a culture different from your own whose work pre-dates, complicates, or resists Western feminist narratives.
In conversation with Pearl's activism: Pay attention to Asian and Asian American women's role in the early suffrage movement, too often obscured by the prevailing narrative around white suffragist leaders.
What These Women Knew, and What We Must Remember
Ume, Xue, and Pearl show us that the drive for equal rights is not just the province of white suffragists and early feminists. None of these women are household names, yet they were vital parts of a movement that eventually extended agency and rights to all (or most) women. As we continue to endure the hostilities of a xenophobic government and the continued fracture amongst women from different racial and ethnic divides, it's more important than ever to interrogate and expand upon the "legacy narrative." Who will future generations remember from our time?
Thanks for reading this edition of #SistoryLessons, a biweekly newsletter that uses the lessons from Foremothers who led the way as encouragement and guide for these times of resilience. The series is based on stories from my award-winning book, Our Brave Foremothers: Celebrating 100 Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous Women Who Changed the Course of History, and other, ongoing research.