We Are Facing History: Uncovering California's Hidden Stories

Helen Zia is both a writer and activist. She is the daughter of immigrants from China and was born and raised in New Jersey. Her latest book, Last Boat out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution, was one of NPR's Best Books and a finalist for a 2020 PEN America prize. Helen's first book, Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, is about the civil rights struggles of Asian Americans, and it is still used as a foundational history text in colleges and high schools. Helen also wrote My Country Versus Me with nuclear physicist Wen Ho Lee, whom the FBI falsely accused of being a spy.

This year, Helen launched the Vincent Chin Institute (vincentchin.org) to counter anti-Asian bigotry and hate violence and promote solidarity. A lifelong activist, she is featured in several documentaries, including the Oscar-nominated Who Killed Vincent Chin?, about the landmark civil rights case of anti-Asian violence. In 2010, she was a witness in the case for marriage equality that went to the Supreme Court. Helen received honorary doctorates from the University of San Francisco and the CUNY Law School. A graduate of Princeton University's first coeducational class, Helen quit medical school after completing two years. She became a community organizer, construction laborer, autoworker, and after which she discovered her life's work as a writer.