Many people are familiar with the famous author Maxine Hong Kingston. She wrote The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, a critically-acclaimed autobiographical account in which Maxine details the conflicting cultural messags she received as the daughter of Chinese immigrants growing up in America in the 1950s. She also wrote China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, The Fifth Book of Peace, and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. But did you know that this talented writer is also a teacher?

Maxine earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962, and then obtained her teaching credential. She taught high school in the city of Hayward for a year, and then moved to Hawaii where she taught in various positions. From 1970 to 1977 she taught at Mid-Pacific Institute, a private boarding school. In 1990, she was invited to joint the faculty of her alma mater, UC Berkeley, as a senior lecturer in the English department. This remarkable educator was honored by President Bill Clinton with a National Humanities Medal in 1997. She has also recieved a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Literary Awards (2006), and a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation (2008).

When Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Empire of Japan, Mary Tsukamoto was living a quiet life as the wife of a strawberry farmer in a diminutive Japanese-American community in Florin, Northern California. Following the attack, Mary’s quiet life was suddenly turned upside-down. Like 120,000 other persons of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, most of them American citizens, Mary was forced into a relocation camp by the U.S. government because her loyalty to our country was questioned. Mary, her husband, their five-year-old daughter, her elderly in-laws, her teenaged brother and sisters, and other members of her family wound up in Jerome, Arkansas, where they were incarcerated until authorities were convinced this family of farmers posed no threat to national security. While detained in the camp, Mary became part of a prisoner-organized effort to provide meaningful educational opportunities for their imprisoned children. Mary taught speech courses for the high school students and English language classes for the elderly.

When the war was over, Mary returned to college, completed her degree, and became an elementary schoolteacher, one of the first certificated Japanese-American teachers in the United States. Her remarkable story is told in her autobiography, We the People, a volume which unfortunately is now out of print. However, with some effort, it can be found through second-hand book sellers or in some libraries (check WorldCat), and it is well worth the hunt. You can read also read her story in Chalkboard Champions, available through amazon.com.

Maya Soetoro-Ng is a former high school history teacher, current university professor, and expert in comparative international education. She also happens to be the half-sister of President Barack Obama. Born in 1970 in Jakarta, Indonesia, she is the daughter of Anne Durham, Barack Obama’s mother, and Anne’s second husband, Indonesian businessman Lolo Soetoro. An accomplished educator in her own right, Maya’s work as a promoter of international relations would be amazing even if she did not enjoy her presidential connections.

Early in her career, Maya taught history at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls and at the Education Laboratory School, both located in Honolulu, Hawaii. She has also taught courses as an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii, College of Education, and between 1996 and 2000, she developed and taught curriculum at The Learning Project, an alternative public middle school located in New York City. She has also served as an Education Specialist at the East-West Center, an organization that promotes understanding between the United States, Asia, and the nations of the Pacific.