Was Mom Chung "a sister lesbian"? : Asian American gender experimentation and interracial homoeroticism

J. Wu

Reputedly the first American-born woman of Chinese descent to become a physician, Margaret Chung (1889-1959) gained wide recognition as a supporter of the Allied cause during the 1930s and 1940s.This article examines the historical significance of her life, not in terms of her accomplishments in the public realm of work and politics, but by focusing on her private choices. Chung decided not to marry or have children during a time when the social pressure for Chinese American women to do both was intense. Instead, she developed erotic relationships with white women. She also experimented with gender presentation, adopting masculine and feminine personas. Wu explores Chung' s gender identities as wells as her homoerotic interracial relationships, expanding the existing understanding of Asian American sexuality during the first half of the twentieth century and revealing the ways in which women of color negotiated shifting gender, sexual, and racial norms from the late Victorian through the modern eras.