Ethnic Studies Responds to Societal Injustice

June Millington: Trailblazing Filipina American guitarist who with her sister Jean created the first all-woman hard rock band, Fanny, in 1969. They did not get the recognition they deserved in their time. Record company executives and music critics thought that an all-woman rock band could only be a fad. Belying this depiction, David Bowie has called them one of the best bands he ever heard. June has continued making music, collaborating with Jean on their album Play Like a Girl. In addition, She and her partner Ann Hackler founded and run the Institute for Musical Arts in Goshen, Massachusetts, which includes a summer camp for girls and young women where she teaches how to "play like a girl," namely by learning collaboration and creativity through making music with fearless joy .

Along with her career in music, Millington has written about her experience as an immigrant woman of color negotiating a career making music on her own terms in her autobiography, Land of a Thousand Bridges: Island Girl in a Rock & Roll World (2016). Her creative experience melds into the visual too, where she has worked on both sides of the documentary lens. Her archivist's spirit is rooted in capturing the transformative work that she and other women artists and musicians have been doing so that it does not get overlooked or marginalized.