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Miriam Ching Yoon Louie papers

 Collection
Identifier: SSC-MS-00719

Scope and Contents

The papers include correspondence, organizing materials, conference materials, fliers, pamphlets, newsletters, and newspaper clippings. There is also Louie's course work as both student and instructor. Major topics include women and labor organizing, Asian American women's history, social justice activism, international women's rights, and issues surrounding race, class, immigration and poverty in the U.S. Especially impressive is the range of material related to grassroots Asian and Latina immigrant workers' organizations, from the 1970s through the early 2000s. Only the most recent accession is included in this finding aid inventory.

Dates of Materials

  • Creation: 1970 - 2016

Creator

Language of Materials

English, Spanish, Korean

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for use without restriction beyond the standard terms and conditions of Smith College Special Collections.

Conditions Governing Use

To the extent that she owns copyright, Miriam Ching Louie has assigned the copyright in her works to Smith College; however, copyright in other items in this collection may be held by their respective creators. For reproductions of materials that are governed by fair use as defined under U. S. Copyright Law, no permission to cite or publish is required. For instances which may regard materials in the collection not created by Miriam Ching Louie, researchers are responsible for determining who may hold materials' copyrights and obtaining approval from them. Researchers do not need anything further from Smith College Special Collections to move forward with their use.

Biographical / Historical

Miriam Ching Yoon Louie was born Dec. 1,1950 in Vallejo, California, the daughter of first generation Korean and Chinese parents, Minnie Marguerite Yoon and Herbert Haw Ching. Louie graduated from high school with honors and went on to college at the University of California at Berkeley where she was quickly drawn into the radical political movements on campus where she met her future husband, Lanyuen Belvin Louie, one of the strike captains for the Third World Liberation Front strike of 1969-1970. Miriam Ching joined that strike as well and as a result lost her scholarships and left school. She would complete her B.A. in Ethnic Studies in 1990, but in the interim, "learned intensively off campus" (see biographical statement provided by Louie, attached).

For the next two decades, Miriam Louie put her affinity for organizing and her talents for writing to use on behalf of a number of radical causes, especially those aimed at empowering women of color. Involved with the Third World Women's Alliance, based in Berkeley, from its earliest days in the 1970s, Louie continued to work with its successor organization, the Alliance Against Women's Oppression, and when the AAWO dissolved, was one of the co-founders of the Women of Color Resource Center in 1990. She has served as the national campaign media coordinator for the Asian Immigrant Women Advocates and for Fuerza Unida, an organization formed in 1990 to advocate for the primarily Latina workforce at the Levi Strauss factory in San Antonio, Texas. More recently, she has (once again) been active in the anti-war movement since 2001.

Miriam Louie has also published widely, with articles appearing in The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and Amerasia Journal. She is the author of Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory (2001); co-author of BRIDGE: A Popular Education for Immigrant and Refugee Community Organizers (2004), and Women's Education in the Global Economy (2000). Louie is also a published poet, her poetry appearing in XicKorea: Poems, Rants, Words Together (with Beth Ching and Arnoldo Garcia, 2002) and in a volume of her own, illustrated by her daughter Nguyen Louie, titled Ranting Tiger, Thundering Bunny (2012). Her 2016 novel, Not Contagious-Only Cancer, is also illustrated by her daughter. Miriam Ching Yoon Louie continues her activism in the Bay area and beyond.

Extent

11.917 linear feet (11 containers)

Additional Description

Abstract

Labor organizer; Women's rights activist; Author; Activist; Poet. The papers include correspondence, organizing materials, conference materials, fliers, pamphlets, newsletters, and newspaper clippings. There is also Louie's course work as both student and instructor. Major topics include women and labor organizing, Asian American women's history, social justice activism, international women's rights, and issues surrounding race, class, immigration and poverty in the U.S. Especially impressive is the range of material related to grassroots Asian and Latina immigrant workers' organizations, from the 1970s through the early 2000s.

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

As a preservation measure, researchers must use digital copies of audiovisual materials in this collection. Please consult with Special Collections staff or email specialcollections@smith.edu to request the creation of and access to digital copies.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The papers were donated to the Sophia Smith Collection by Miriam Louie in 2013. In 2016, she donated a copy of her first novel.

Appraisal

One folder of mailing lists was discarded in May 2023.

Related Materials

Associated material located in the records of the Alliance Against Women's Oppression; the Third World Women's Alliance; and the Women of Color Resource Center.

Related Names

Subjects

Genre / Form

Geographic

Topical

Finding Aid & Administrative Information

Title
Finding Aid to the Miriam Ching Yoon Louie papers
Status
Legacy Finding Aid (Updated)
Author
Madison White
Date
2019
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Revision Statements

  • 07/26/2017: This resource was modified by the ArchivesSpace Preprocessor developed by the Harvard Library (https://github.com/harvard-library/archivesspace-preprocessor)
  • 2017-07-26T17:48:10-04:00: This record was migrated from InMagic DB Textworks to ArchivesSpace.
  • 2019-01-02: updated to current descriptive standards

Repository Details

Repository Details

Part of the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History Repository

https://libraries.smith.edu/special-collections/about/sophia-smith-collection-womens-history
Contact:
Neilson Library
7 Neilson Drive
Northampton MA 01063

  • Smith College Special Collections
  • Neilson Library, 7 Neilson Drive
  • Northampton, Massachusetts, 01063
  • specialcollections@smith.edu
  • 413-585-2970

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Creative Commons License
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