Introduction


Part I: Why They Came


1. About a Wheat Field and a Bowl of Barley Porridge
by Vilhelm Moberg


2. "Factory Girls"
by Chea Villanueva


3. "My Education and Aspirations Demanded More"
by Marie Zakrzewska


4. "He Has the Right to Command You"
by Marie Hall Ets


5. "I Remember How Scared I Was"
by Golda Meir


6. "I Am Alive to Tell You This Story …"
by Anonymous


Part II: Surviving in a New Land


1. Issei Women: "Picture Brides" in America
by Emma Gee


2. "I Escaped with My Life"
by Guri Endreson


3. "Urbanization Without Breakdown"
by Corinne Azen Krause


4. The Diary of a Rent Striker: "Harlem and Hope"
by Innocencia Flores


5. "Paths upon Water"
by Tahira Naqvi


6. Strategies for Growing Old: Basha Is a Survivor
by Barbara Myerhoff


Part III: Work


1. "Better We Glean Than Our Children Starve"
by Hope Williams Sykes


2. A Physician in the "First True 'Woman's Hospital' in the World"
by Marie Zakrzewska


3. "The Duties of the Housewife Remain Manifold and Various"
by Sophonisba Breckinridge


4. "With Respect and Feelings": Voices of West Indian Child Care and Domestic Workers in New York City
by Shellee Colen


5. The Immigrant Woman and Her Job: Agnes D., Mrs. E., Angelina, Minnie, Louise M., and Theresa M.
by Caroline Manning


6. "I Consider Myself a 'Theater Worker'..."
by Dolores Frida


Part IV: Family


1. "She Will Deny Herself Innocent Enjoyments": Dutiful Irish Daughters
by John Francis Maguire


2. Unmarried Mothers
by Grace Abbott


3. Syrian Women in Chicago: "New Responsibilities … New Skills"
by Safia Haddad


4. "Once You Marry Someone It Is Forever"
by Michiko Tanaka


5. The Vine and the Fruit
by Hope Williams Sykes


6. "We Want to Give a Complete Picture of Who We Are" "Palm Sunday 1981"
by Lorenza Compañeras (Introduction) by Mariana Romo-Carmona


7. A Family Disrupted: "Shikata Ga Nai "—This Cannot Be Helped"
by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston


Part V: Community Life


1. "If One Could Help Another"
by Vilhelm Moberg


2. "Let Us Join Hands": The Polish Women's Alliance
by Thaddeus Radzialowski


3. Rosa and the Chicago Commons: "How Can I Not Love America?"
by Marie Hall Ets


4. "The Free Vacation House,"
by Anzia Yezierska


5. "I Bridge a Gap Between Two Cultures": Lyu-Volckhausen, Advocate for the Korean Community
by Anne Field


6. "People Who Do This Kind of Work Are in Such Danger of Burnout": Judy Baca, "Urban Artist"
by Diane Neumaier


Part VI: Education


1. "The Lessons Which Most Influenced My Life... Came from My Parents"
by Harriet Pawlowska

2. "An Impossible Dream": The Struggle for Higher Education
by Elizabeth Loza Newby


3. The Stubborn Twig: "My Double Dose of Schooling"
by Monica Sone


4. "I Am a Housewife": English Lessons for Vietnamese Women
by Gail Paradise Kelly


5. "Glad That I Am the Future"
by a Memphis teenager


6. Unfulfilled Aspirations: "Never Used the Brush and Ink"
by Teiko Tomita


Part VII: Social and Political Activists


1. At the End of the Santa Fe Trail
by Sister Blandina Segale


2. "This Is Law, But Where Is the Justice of It"
by Ernestine Potowski Rose


3. "In Memoriam—American Democracy"
by Emma Goldman


4. The March of the Mill Children
by Mary Harris ("Mother") Jones


5. Fasting for Suffrage: "We Don't Want Other Women Ever to Have to Do This Over Again"
by Rose Winslow


6. "Black Women of the World … Push Forward"
by Amy Jacques Garvey


7. "Why Did I Put Up With It All These Years": The Farah Strike
by Lauri Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig


Part VIII: Daughters and Granddaughters


1. A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe
by Maxine Hong Kingston


2. The Parish and the Hill
by Mary Doyle Curran


3. "This Is Selina"
by Paule Marshall


4. "We Can Begin to Move toward Sisterhood"
by Barbara Mikulski


5. Join My Struggle: "A Poem for Marshall"
by Anne Martinez


6. Asian-American Women and Feminism: "Gender Equality … Is Not the Exclusive Agenda"
by Lucie Cheng


7. Generations of Women
by Janice Mirikitani


Bibliographical Essay


Index