Margo Okazawa-Rey

Margo Okazawa-Rey
Born	(1949-11-26) November 26, 1949 (age 71)
Academic background
Academic work
Institutions	Fielding Graduate University Mills College Hamilton College

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Margo Okazawa-Rey (born 26 November 1949 in Japan), is an American professor emerita, educator, writer, and social justice activist, who is most known as a founding member of the Combahee River Collective, and for her transnational feminist advocacy.^[1][2]

Early life[]

Okazawa-Rey was born in Kobe, Japan to an African-American father and a Japanese mother and cites her mixed race heritage made possible by American occupation of Japan as influencing her work on anti-militarism.^[3]

Okazawa-Rey moved to the United States when she was ten years old.^[4]

Okazawa-Rey conducted her Fulbright Program in South Korea, citing an interest in interminority racism between Korean and African Americans.^[4]

Career[]

Positions[]

Okazawa-Rey is Professor Emerita, San Francisco State University. She also was Core Faculty in the Doctoral Program of the School of Human and Organization Development at the Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. She has also held the Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College,^[4] Jane Watson Irwin Chair and Elihu Root Chair in Women's Studies at Hamilton College.

Research[]

Okazawa-Rey's specific areas of interest are militarism, armed conflict, and violence against women. In her research, she examined the connections between militarism, economic globalization, and impacts on local and migrant women in South Korea who live and work around US military bases.^[5]

Okazawa-Rey also worked with women in the militarized and post-conflict areas of Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, where they are exploring the role of feminist research in activism, policy change, and women's empowerment. A related interest was connecting the effects of the military-industrial complex and prison industrial complex have on poor and working-class youth in American communities of color.^[5] She is, making connections—both theoretical and practical—between foreign policy and domestic policy.

Activism[]

As a founding member of the Combahee River Collective in the mid-1970s, it shaped her scholarship and activism and the framework of intersectionality has informed her activism on military violence against women, inter/intra-ethnic conflicts, and critical multicultural education in Boston, Washington, DC, and the San Francisco Bay Area.^[6]

Okazawa-Rey co-authored “A Black Feminist Statement” in 1978 with the collective.^[7]

In addition to her role as a member of the Combahee River Collective, she was also a founding member of the Afro-Asian Relations Council, the Institute for Multiracial Justice, and the East Asia-U.S. Women's Network Against Militarism, which became the International Women's Network Against Militarism. She has a long-standing relationship to international social justice work as she sits on the international board of NGO's: PeaceWomen Across the Globe (based in Bern, Switzerland), and Du Re Bang (My Sister's Place, based in Uijongbu, South Korea); after having worked for three years as the Feminist Research Consultant at the Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling in Ramallah, Palestine.^[5]

Personal life[]

Okazawa-Rey was one of the 100+ Black scholars and academics who opined their support for Bernie Sanders during the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries.^[4]

Publications[]

She is the author of numerous publications including:

• “Making Connections: Building the East Asia-US Women's Network” Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 1998. In Women and War Reader, Jennifer Turpin and Lois A. Lorentsen (eds). New York: New York University Press. pp.308-322.
• “Children of GI Town: The invisible legacy of militarized prostitution” Margo Okazawa-Rey, 1997. Asian Journal of Women's Studies, Spring: pp. 71-100.
• Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. (6th Ed.) Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 2016. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Activist scholarship: antiracism, feminism, and social change. Julia Sudbury and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 2009. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers.
• "Militarism, Conflict, and Women's Activism in the Global Era: Challenges and Prospects for Women in Three West African Contexts" Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Feminist Review (vol. 101:1), July 2012. pp. 97-123
• Beyond Heroes and Holidays: A Practical Guide to K-12 Multicultural, Anti-Racist Education and Staff Development. Lee, E., Menkart, D., & Okazawa-Rey, M. (Eds.). 2011. ^[8]
• “No Freedom without Connections: Envisioning Sustainable Feminist Solidarities.” (2018) in Feminist Freedom Warriors: Genealogies, Justice, Politics, and Hope, Chandra Talpade Mohanty and Linda Carty (eds.). New York: Haymarket Press.
• Between a Rock and Hard Place: Southeast Asian Women Confront Extractivism, Militarism, and Religious Fundamentalisms (2018). Washington DC: Just Associates.
• “Liberal Arts Colleges Partnering with Highlander Research and Education Center: Intergenerational Learning for Student Campus Activism and Personal Transformation,” Feminist Formations Special Issue on Feminist Social Justice Pedagogy (2018).
• Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives (7th Edition). Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey, 2020. Oxford UK/New York: Oxford University Press.
• “Nation-izing” Coalition and Solidarity Politics for US Anti-militarist Feminists, Social Justice (2020).

Awards and nominations[]

• Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship in 1994.^[9]
• Social Science Research Council Grant in 1996.^[9]
• Jane Watson Irwin Distinguished Chair in Women's Studies at Hamilton College, from 1999 to 2001.
• Social Work Leader Award with the Soros Foundation: Project on Death in America, from 2000 to 2002
• Earl and Edna Stice Feminist Scholar of Social Justice at the University of Washington from 2004 to 2005.
• Mellon Foundation Feminist Activist Scholar in Residence at Scripps College in 2006.
• The Margo Okazawa-Rey Social Justice Fellowship in 2009 at the Claremont Colleges.

References[]