A petition drive has been launched to rename Oakland International Airport in California after Maggie Gee.
The East Bay Times reports Gee was one of just 1,100 women to serve in the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during WWII. Only one other Chinese American served in the WASPS, Hazel Ying Lee, according to Wikipedia.
The petition states “over 25,000 women applied to the WASP but only 1,074 were accepted and made it through the rigorous training program. Thirty-eight of these pilots died in service to their country.”
“Why not? Why can’t we get the airport named in her honor?” said Tiffany Miller, who launched the petition. “She would really represent the personality of Oakland: unique, trailblazer. … People would fly into the airport and say, ‘Maggie Gee? Who is that?’ And they would learn about her and about the WASPs.”
There are no major airports in the U.S. currently named after a woman.
Miller said reaction, so far, from the board overseeing the airport has been negative. Miller said someone suggested she seek instead to rename a street or building. Miller laments that women have been told to “think smaller” for years.
Harvey Dong, an Asian American Studies lecturer at UC Berkeley, says Gee served her country despite facing rampant discrimination.
“(Gee) actually changed the way we look at the role of Asian American women in history,” Dong said to the East Bay Times. “She broke stereotypes of Asian American women at that time.”
You can sign the change.org petition here..
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