Women, Gender, and Families of Color (WGFC) is a multidisciplinary journal from the University of Illinois Press that centers the study of Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and Asian American women, genders, and families. Within this framework, the journal publishes theoretical and empirical research from the social and behavioral sciences and the humanities. It encompasses comparative and transnational research as well as analyses of domestic social, cultural, political, and economic policies and practices. To date, the journal has featured a variety of articles on the African diaspora, indigenous history and politics, migrant experiences, LGBTQIA of color civic life, Asian American families, single mothers, activists, and beyond. Guest-edited and special topics issues include Black girlhood and kinship; race, gender, and disability; women, gender politics, and pan-Africanism; Black love after E. Franklin Frazier; and critical essays from readers on the state of college campuses in Trump’s America.

WGFC was established in 2012 by Dr. Jennifer Hamer at the University of Kansas and was hosted by the American Studies Department. WGFC was an expansion of its predecessor Black Women, Gender, and Families (BWGF), which was established by Hamer in 2006 at the University of Illinois and published by the University of Illinois Press. BWGF was an editorial success. It featured the work of new and established scholars, was invited to Project MUSE in its third year, and received thousands of monthly online views and prestigious accolades. The late Rosalyn Terborg Penn’s article, “Migration, Trans-Racial/National Identity Re-Formation: Becoming African Diaspora Women” in the Fall 2011 issue of BWGF, for example, won the Association of Black Women Historians’ 2011-2012 Letitia Woods Brown Best Article Prize for its leading-edge work. Building on this success, Hamer expanded the focus of BWGF after six years and founded Women, Gender, and Families of Color as a more inclusive, intersectional platform that would broadly capture what it means to be a person of color in the United States and beyond.

Since its founding, WGFC has provided a necessary and welcoming forum for diverse topics and scholars. With the critical contributions of talented reviewers, editorial board members, and guest editors, the journal has highlighted the work of scholars writing from a variety of fields, methods, and perspectives. This vital research interrogates the hows and whys underlining social experiences, political systems, and modes of commemoration and resistance. The journal promotes cutting-edge work on populations otherwise marginalized in society and scholarship to demonstrate the breadth and depth of work needed to more fully understand and combat systemic inequities. The journal continues to be available in both hard copy and electronically through Project MUSE and JSTOR.

In 2019, Hamer accepted a position as the first Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Faculty Development at Pennsylvania State University, and the journal welcomed Dr. Ayesha Hardison as its new lead Editor. In this transition, the journal is now hosted by the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Kansas. Dr. Cécile Accilien also joined WGFC as the new Editorial Board Chair, and Hamer moved into the new role of Advisory Editor in this year.