The rise of the Auntie Sewing Squad, a massive mutual-aid network of volunteers who provided free masks in the wake of US government failures during the COVID-19 pandemic.   In March 2020, when the US government failed to provide personal protective gear during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Auntie Sewing Squad emerged. Founded by performance artist Kristina Wong, the mutual-aid group sewed face masks with a bold social justice mission: to protect the most vulnerable and most neglected.   Written and edited by Aunties themselves, The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice tells a powerful story. As the pandemic unfolded, hate crimes against Asian Americans spiked. In this climate of fear and despair, a team of mostly Asian American women using the familial label "Auntie" formed online, gathered momentum, and sewed masks at home by the thousands. The Aunties nimbly made and funneled masks to asylum seekers, Indigenous communities, incarcerated people, farmworkers, and others disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. When anti-lockdown agitators descended on state capitals—and, eventually, the US Capitol—the Aunties dug in. And as the nation erupted in rebellion over police violence against Black people, the Aunties supported and supplied Black Lives Matter protesters and organizations serving Black communities. Providing hundreds of thousands of homemade masks met an urgent public health need and expressed solidarity, care, and political action in a moment of social upheaval.   The Auntie Sewing Squad is a quirky, fast-moving, and adaptive mutual-aid group that showed up to meet a critical need. Led primarily by women of color, the group includes some who learned to sew from mothers and grandmothers working for sweatshops or as a survival skill passed down by refugee relatives. The Auntie Sewing Squad speaks back to the history of exploited immigrant labor as it enacts an intersectional commitment to public health for all. This collection of essays and ephemera is a community document of the labor and care of the Auntie Sewing Squad. "Perfect for activists and those interested in crafting for a cause, this spirited collection inspires." ― Publishers Weekly " The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice provides an essential snapshot of how arts workers and culture-shapers can channel their creative drive into meaningful mutual aid." ― KQED "Here is a book about voluntary, radical collective carework emerging out of catastrophe. COVID-19’s crisis is turned, stitch by stitch, joke by joke, act by act, toward a true, progressive community of tomorrow." ― Society for U.S. Intellectual History "A how-to grassroots community organizing tool to revel in." ― Nichi Bei "Sewing, like this book, is bringing together pieces of life to create a new being. We stitch together the parts of ourselves that feel raw and unfinished and we are clothed and rendered, reborn in full."—Margaret Cho, Grammy and Emmy Award–nominated stand-up comedian, actress, and singer-songwriter "During this terrible time, when people like me are being attacked, the Auntie Sewing Squad gives me heart. They have written a practical guide—including patterns—for making masks, making community, and making us safer. Thank you, Aunties."—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Fifth Book of Peace  and winner of the National Book Award "This is far more than the important account of women warriors, armed with sewing needles, who organized organically yet deliberately into a movement for social change in the time of Covid—it's an inspiring manifesto on building the Beloved Community. Please follow up with the field manual for global distribution!"—Helen Zia, activist, journalist, and author of Asian American Dreams and Last Boat Out of Shanghai " The Auntie Sewing Squad Guide to Mask Making, Radical Care, and Racial Justice is a wonderful, motley, no-bullshit collective history of a singular and beautiful mutual aid project—a collective that, in crafting and distributing masks as an expression of radical solidarity and capacity-building, reclaims the politicization of masks from the Right. In valuing care and beauty, embracing individual multiplicity and internal debate, the Aunties have assembled a subversive vision of liberation through accountability. This book makes for encouraging, galvanizing company for anyone interested in translating desire into action and moving from isolation into community."—Jia Tolentino, author of  Trick Mirror "Decades later, these stories will shimmer as individual and collective testimonies of how a multigenerational, grassroots coalition of mask-making Aunties saved lives and celebrated life during a worldwide pandemic. This book sparks joy! It vivifies 'creativity as resistance' and everyday activism in ways that will add depth and breadth to the transdisciplinary study of social movements and social justice."—Vickie Nam,