Culture-Keepers: Writing Story to Keep Self, Hope, and Legacy Alive

Before we begin...

For this edition of #SistoryLessons, I'm thinking a lot about women’s voices in the face of adversity. Whether we have loved ones in harm’s way, are ourselves facing precarity, or are just highly attuned to the suffering of others that seems so dominant in our headlines as to be nearly “normalized,” we are all finding ways to navigate levels of adversity that feel quite unprecedented.

In these moments, I’m inclined to think about the origins of Brave Sis Project as a storytelling platform. The Black, Brown, Asian, and Indigenous women we honor also faced precarious times. We often hear and use the saying “they did more with less.” What does this mean? They lived in times of less safety, less legal protection, less access, fewer rights—but possibly most significantly, less public interest and concern. It is only in more recent times that BIPOC* women were even included in the public discourse; so often, they were erased, dismissed, or spoken about only in the margins.

Despite these structural, societal, cultural, and gender barriers, these amazing Foremothers built movements, nurtured families and communities, changed laws, told the truth, and expanded what was thinkable.

So as awful as these days feel (trust me, I’m with you here), it’s not our time to lean into suffering, but to honor these women by “catching their fire” and using their example to fuel our resistance, perseverance, and courage.

In that spirit, lets lift up three women who you may not be familiar with (unless you've followed Brave Sis Project since the beginning). Each exemplifies how culture-keeping can be a form of resilience: Mary Paik Lee, who documented the Korean immigrant experience at a time when her very presence in the United States was a rarity; Liliʻuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch who preserved her people’s sovereignty and identity through memoir and song; and Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian feminist writer and physician who is not in my book Our Brave Foremothers but deserves commemoration for the ways she wielded her pen against patriarchy, religious fundamentalism, and authoritarian rule, inspiring generations of women across West Asia and beyond.

All three, writers, not only inspire me as a writer myself, but they help us remember that, even in an era of attempted cultural revisionism and erasure, storytelling remains an act of resistance.

(*About that term, "BIPOC": We know this acronym is evolving and can feel reductive and misaligned for many. We use it here as a familiar shorthand, but please feel free to use whatever terms best reflect your values and community.)

Mary Paik Lee: "Quiet Odyssey"

Mary Paik Lee was born Paik Kuang Sun in 1900 in the Korean Empire, into a Christian family baptized by American Presbyterian missionaries. In 1905, when she was five, her parents fled Japan’s tightening colonial control and joined the tiny early wave of Korean migrants to the United States, traveling first to Hawaiʻi and then on to California. There, her formerly educated, middle‑class family was pushed into the ranks of farmworkers, domestic servants, and other low‑paid laborers, struggling to survive in a society that treated Koreans as perpetual foreigners.

From age eleven, Mary worked as a house cleaner for a dollar a week to help her family survive. They moved constantly throughout the state, from Riverside to Colusa, and Claremont to Willows, facing crushing poverty and relentless racism: white Americans couldn't (or didn't care to bother to) distinguish Koreans from Japanese or Chinese, and after the Pearl Harbor attack, general hatred of East Asians only intensified.

Through all of this, Mary persevered: she put herself through high school doing yard work and cooking in exchange for lodging, married fellow Korean immigrant HM Lee, raised a family while working as a farmer and produce merchant, and remained active in the Korean independence movement. In her eighties, she finally wrote it all down in her memoir Quiet Odyssey: A Pioneer Korean Woman in America, giving voice to a community whose stories had been largely invisible in American history.

Reflection: What parts of your family history are still unfolding in you?

Lili'uokalani: Songs of Sovereignty

Lili'uokalani was born Lydia Lili'u Loloku Walania Kamakaʻeha in 1838 in Honolulu, into Hawaiian royalty during a time of tremendous change. Educated by American missionaries, fluent in Hawaiian and English, accomplished in music and poetry, she grew up watching her beloved islands navigate the pressures of colonization and foreign interference.

She would be the last sovereign monarch her nation would ever have, ascending to the throne in 1891. Her reign as Queen of the Kingdom of Hawai'i would not last; in 1893, American businessmen backed by U.S. military forces overthrew her government, imprisoning her in her own palace and eventually forcing her to abdicate.

While under house arrest for nearly eight months, forbidden from leaving, Lili'uokalani wrote music, something she'd been dedicated to all her life. Hawaii's last monarch composed over 150 songs and chants throughout her life, including the Hawaiian national anthem and her most famous work, "Aloha ʻOe"—originally a love song that became a symbol of loss, farewell, and cultural resilience after the overthrow.

Lili'uokalani's music preserved Hawaiian language, traditions, and legends at a time when the U.S. government was actively suppressing Hawaiian culture, banning the language in schools, and erasing Native Hawaiian sovereignty from the historical record.

Reflection: What do you stand to lose—and what will you never give up?

Nawal El Saadawi: Writing for Power and Dissent

Nawal El Saadawi was born in 1931 in a small village in Egypt’s Nile Delta, into a family navigating British colonial rule, rising nationalism, and deeply entrenched patriarchal norms. Although she herself had the great privilege of pursuing an education and eventually training as a physician, she grew up bearing witness to most girls having dimmer futures due to limited schooling and early marriage.

Nawal used the power of the pen to reject these norms. She became a prolific writer, doctor, and activist, publishing novels, essays, and works of nonfiction that exposed the violence of patriarchy, religious fundamentalism, and state repression in Egypt and across the Arab world. She wrote fearlessly about topics many considered taboo, including female genital cutting, domestic violence, and the ways capitalism and imperialism collide with sexism in women’s lives.

Nawal operated in what feminist historians call a “third space”—moving between medical institutions, grassroots women’s organizing, and international human rights circles, always finding creative ways to speak truth to power without waiting for official titles or permission.

Her work was so confrontational to the status quo that she lost her post in the Ministry of Health, saw her books banned, and was imprisoned for her ideas.

Even in the face of these trials, she refused to silence herself. Until her death in 2021, she continued to write, teach, and organize, leaving behind a formidable legacy of intellectual rigor and uncompromising commitment to women’s liberation. From her work, we can remember that telling the truth about women’s lives is a bold and revolutionary practice.

Reflection: How do your race, culture, and gender interweave in your activism?

Reflection and Action: Journal Prompts for Everyone

As you consider Mary Paik Lee's story, ask yourself: How do you adapt to new environments? Write about a time you or your family started over in a new place. What did you carry with you, and what did you have to leave behind?

In honor of Lili'uokalani think about how you respond to loss with dignity. Write about a time you accepted change you couldn't control. What helped you maintain your sense of self through that transition?

Thinking of Nawal El Saadawi: How do you use your mind and your voice when you're not given a platform? Write about a time you spoke or created something that told the truth about your experience, even when it challenged the comfort of others.

HerStory / OurStory: Journal Prompts for Women of Color

In honor of Mary Paik Lee's story: How do your ancestors' migrations still shape your values? Share an immigration or migration story from your family. What did they risk? What did they preserve? How does their journey live in you today?

Thinking of Lili'uokalani, consider: What legacy of sovereignty runs in your blood? Learn about your ancestral leaders and their legacies—whether they were queens, community organizers, healers, or freedom fighters. How can you honor their resistance?

As you learn about Nawal El Saadawi: How do your race, culture, and gender interweave in your activism? Reflect on the unique position you occupy and how you navigate spaces not built for you. What is your “third space,” and how do you insist on telling the truth from there?

Activated Allies: Prompts and Actions for White Friends

In thanks to Mary Paik Lee: Study Asian American immigrant women beyond Japanese and Chinese narratives. Korean, Filipino, South Asian, and Southeast Asian women's stories are often erased even within Asian American history. Support organizations that help immigrants and refugees, particularly those serving Korean American and Asian immigrant communities.

To commemorate the valor of Lili'uokalani: Learn about Hawaiian history from Native Hawaiian perspectives—not the sanitized tourist version. Understand that to many with ancestral roots in the archipelago (and others of us as well!) Hawai'i is an illegally occupied sovereign nation, so learn a bit about land return movements and Indigenous organizing. Read Lili'uokalani's own writings, including her autobiography Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen.

In honor of Nawal El Saadawi: Study Arab and West Asian feminists who confronted both patriarchy and imperialism. Whose work has been censored, banned, or dismissed? Support translations, publishers, and organizations that amplify feminist voices from West Asia and North Africa, and challenge Islamophobic narratives even as you oppose gender oppression.

More on Their Lives

Mary Paik Lee — 1900–1996 — Documenting the Daily, With Dignity

Mary Paik Lee's early childhood in Korea was marked by privilege—her family was educated, Christian, and relatively well-off. But the Japanese occupation of Korea shattered that security. Her parents, like many Koreans of their generation, saw no future for their children under colonial rule and made the wrenching decision to leave their homeland.

When the family arrived in Hawai'i in 1905, they were among fewer than a hundred Korean families on the islands. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for them to discover that immigration would not deliver the freedom they'd hoped for. The work was backbreaking, wages were low, and discrimination was everywhere. After a short time, the emigrated again—to the mainland, and settled in California.

Life in California was not much easier. The family lived in one-room shacks with no running water. Mary's mother cooked breakfast and dinner and packed lunches for thirty single Korean men who worked in the citrus groves—grueling labor for meager pay. Her father took whatever work he could find: janitor, potato farmer, mercury miner. The struggle was real real.

By age eleven, Mary was working as a house cleaner, earning a dollar a week. She later worked in laundries, fields, and kitchens, whatever could help out. Mary's parents knew education was the key to a better future, and their daughter was determined to make them proud. When there was no high school in the town where her family lived, Mary moved to another one, supporting herself by doing housework and yard work in exchange for room and board. This situation lasted about a year, until her family was finally able to move to a town with a high school and she could return to living with them.

She was still in high school in Willows, California when she met another Korean immigrant, HM Lee. He had left Korea in 1905, first living in Mexico before eventually making his way to the US They married and started a family, continuing the hard work of making a life in a country that never ceased to "other" and discriminate against them. Despite the racism they faced, they raised their children with a strong sense of Korean identity.

Mary remained connected to the Korean independence movement her entire life. She and her husband, like many Korean immigrants of their generation, saw their work in America not just as an act of survival but as part of a larger struggle to free Korea from Japanese rule. When their homeland finally broke free from Japanese rule after the Korean War, (though of course, now divided into two contentious neighboring countries), Mary and her husband continued their work as farmers, produce merchants, and apartment managers in California. She was widowed in 1975, and soon after, Mary moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco, where she volunteered as a Korean interpreter for seniors.

It wasn't until she was in her eighties that she decided to write her memoir, Quiet Odyssey, with the encouragement of Chinese American historian and pioneering scholar of Asian American studies, Sucheng Chan. The book, published in 1990, became one of the first memoirs by a Korean American woman, documenting a life and a community that had been largely invisible in American historical narratives.

Lili'uokalani — 1838–1917 — The Queen Whose Song was About Resistance

Liliʻuokalani was born into Hawaiian royalty at a time when the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was under growing external pressure. American missionaries, sugar plantation owners, and business interests were gaining power in the islands, and the Hawaiian monarchy was fighting to maintain sovereignty. As an adult, Liliʻuokalani would become the first woman to rule Hawaiʻi in her own right as queen.

When she was a young woman, however, another royal woman nearly reached the throne. In 1874, many Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian people) placed their hopes in Dowager Queen Emma Kalanikaumakaʻamano Kaleleonālani, the widowed consort of Kamehameha IV. Emma had been educated at the Royal School, an elite boarding school created by American missionaries for children of the highest‑ranking aliʻi (chiefs), where she studied English, music, science, and Christian theology and received a strict Victorian education. LIli'oukalani, as a royal, would also be educated there.

Emma became known as a caring leader who championed Native Hawaiian health and education, and many ordinary people saw her as their “people’s queen,” even after her husband’s death. In the royal election of 1874, huge crowds rallied around Emma as their choice, but the legislature chose the candidate favored by many foreign businessmen and diplomats, David Kalākaua, Liliʻuokalani's brother. That sense of betrayal—and the memory of a beloved queen passed over in favor of foreign interests—lingered in Hawaiian political life as Liliʻuokalani came of age.

Seventeen years later, in 1891, King Kalākaua died and his sister Liliʻuokalani became Queen. Many Native Hawaiians still remembered how the government had ignored popular support for Emma and chosen a "puppet" of American and European business interests in the islands, and in the intervening years between 1874 and 1891, those interests only grew stronger. By the time Liliʻuokalani took the throne, American businessmen and plantation owners who had once preferred Kalākaua over Emma now opposed any strong Hawaiian monarch, considering Hawaiian sovereignty as a threat to their profits and pushed hard for annexation by the United States.

In January 1893, just two years after she became queen, Liliʻuokalani proposed a new constitution that would restore power to the Hawaiian people and reduce the influence of foreign business interests. In response, a group of American and European businessmen, supported by U.S. Marines who landed in Honolulu on January 16–17, 1893, staged a coup. They overthrew the Queen, imprisoned her in her own palace, and declared a provisional government.

Hoping to prevent bloodshed, Liliʻuokalani did not call on her people to fight. Instead, she surrendered under protest and appealed to the U.S. government to restore her throne, believing that President Grover Cleveland and the American public would recognize the injustice.

They did not.

In 1895, after a failed attempt by her supporters to restore her to power, Liliʻuokalani was arrested and charged with treason. She was held under house arrest in ʻIolani Palace for nearly eight months, allowed only one attendant and forbidden to see visitors or leave her rooms.

During this forced confinement, she composed some of her most enduring music, including “Ke Aloha o Ka Haku” (“The Queen’s Prayer”), a Christian hymn asking for forgiveness and strength. She also compiled a Hawaiian‑language songbook, using her music and poetry to preserve the stories, legends, and traditions of her people even as their kingdom was taken from them.

Her most famous composition, “Aloha ʻOe,” had been written earlier as a love song, but after the overthrow it took on new meaning, as a song of farewell—not just between lovers, but between Hawaiʻi and its sovereignty. Carelessly inserted into a million cartoon themes, it is still performed around the world today, generally without awareness of its political significance.

In 1898, the United States formally annexed Hawaiʻi, making it a U.S. territory against the wishes of the Hawaiian people. That same year, Lili'oukalani published her autobiography Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen in 1898 to ensure that the true history of what had happened would not be lost. In it, she wrote with both dignity and sorrow about the theft of her nation.

Nawal El Saadawi — 1931–2021 — The Pen as Weapon

Nawal El Saadawi was born in the village of Kafr Tahla in Egypt, in a family that valued education but lived within strict gender expectations. From an early age, she noticed the different rules applied to boys and girls, especially around schooling, marriage, and bodily autonomy. Those observations fueled a lifelong refusal to accept women’s suffering as “normal.”

She was able to earn a doctor's degree from Cairo University and practiced medicine in rural areas where she got a first-had view of how poverty, patriarchy, and colonial legacies combined to harm women’s bodies and lives. These experiences shaped her first major nonfiction work, Women and Sex, which challenged religious, cultural, and political authorities by naming sexual oppression as a core tool of women’s subjugation.

Her words would cost her. Nawal was dismissed from her position at the Ministry of Health, her books were banned, and she was closely watched by the state. In 1981, she was imprisoned, along with scores of other dissidents, in a mass roundup ordered by then-President Anwar Sadat. But even in prison, she kept writing—using a smuggled eyebrow pencil and rolls of toilet paper to record her thoughts.

Nawal’s bibliography spans novels, memoirs, essays, and critical theory, all centering the lives of women and the overlapping forces of patriarchy, capitalism, and imperialism. She insisted that women’s liberation could not be separated from broader struggles for political and economic justice, and she refused both Western savior narratives and local fundamentalist backlash.

Right up to her death in 2021, Nawal continued to speak, write, and organize, becoming a touchstone for feminist movements from Cairo to global diasporas.

What These Women Knew, and What We Must Remember

Mary Paik Lee, Lili'uokalani, and Nawal El Saadawi each understood that she who controls the story control the future. Mary documented a community that was invisible in American history, inscribing a mostly unknown narrative into our national tapestry. Through her songs and autobiography, Lili'uokalani did her part to preserve Hawaiian sovereignty and identity even as her nation was stolen. And Nawal's novels, essays, and manifestos contributed to the global feminist canon by confronting patriarchy, fundamentalism, and authoritarian rule.

In this moment, when colleges are retrenching their humanities departments altogether, or where ethnic studies departments are under attack, when books are being banned, when the histories of marginalized communities are being erased from curricula, we need to fiercely preserve their legacy. We can honor these Foremothers by continuing their work: writing our own stories, preserving our languages and traditions, documenting our struggles and victories, and refusing to let anyone else define who we are or what we've accomplished.

Did You Read This Far? Announcing a Chance to Win a Brave Sis Notebook!

I'm not burying the lead, but this is a great way to see who reads all the way to the end!

This year, we want to uplift the Foremother spirit that lives in each of us—whether that’s an auntie, an elder, a mentor, a community mama, a blood relative, or an ancestor who helped shape who we are. So we’re launching a special Foremothers Day Love Letter Contest.

In 150–300 words, share a story about a Foremother who shaped you. Please include:

• Who she is (first name or initials are fine)
• What she taught you about courage, care, or culture
• How you carry her with you through these challenging times

Send it to info@bravesis.com — Deadline: May 10, Mother’s Day.

We will publish three stories in the June 1 newsletter, and each featured storyteller will receive a beautiful Brave Sis Foremothers notebook (see them here). We’ll be in touch so you can choose your preferred design.

We are not judging polished writing; we’re looking for stories that speak to our mission of honoring the Foremothers who changed us. By submitting, you confirm the story is yours to tell and that you have permission to share any names or images. We may lightly edit for length and clarity and may publish your story with your first name and city (or initials, if you prefer).

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.

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