Fields: Asian North American Literature and Culture, Feminist Theory, Critical Ethnic Studies, Settler Colonialism and Empire
Biography:
My academic scholarship focuses on the settler imperial genealogies of contemporary US culture. I am currently working on a manuscript that examines the intersections of nineteenth-century US Indian removal policies and anti-Asian exclusion laws and their cultural afterlife in contemporary discourses around race, property, and security. I am also working on another project that examines race, gender, empire, and craft, retracing an alternative genealogy of contemporary craft discourse by way of the nineteenth century industrial education movement, Indian boarding schools, and the inculcation of handicraft in US imperial outposts.
In addition to my academic scholarship, I also have also worked in grassroots community media. I co-founded and co-produced APA Compass, an Asian Pacific American public affairs radio program, and I was a regular contributor to The Asian Reporter.
On the PSU faculty since 2001.
Courses I regularly teach:
- ENG 300: Literary Form and Analysis
- ENG 326: Literature, Community, and Difference
- ENG 369U: Asian American Literature
- ENG 469/569: Advanced Topics in Asian American Literature and Culture
Journal articles and book chapters (selected):
- “The Philippine Craftsman: Empire, Education, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition,” Journal of Modern Craft 15.3 (2022): 241-257.
- “Space, Place, and Power in the Neoliberal Academy: Reflections on Asian American Women and Leadership in The Chair” co-authored with Patti Duncan and Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, What Can Be? Emancipatory Change in US Higher Education. Eds. Kenneth R. Roth, Zachary S. Ritter, Felix Kumah-Abiwu, and Sayil Camacho. London: Palgrave (2022): 35-51.
- “Cultivating ‘Indian Country:’ Settler Imperialism and Bich Minh Nguyen’s Pioneer Girl” Journal of Global South 14.2 (2020): 29-50.
- “Handcrafting Whiteness: Booker T. Washington and the Subject of Contemporary Craft,” ASAP/Journal 5.2 (2020): 423-449.
- “Solidarity and Simultaneity in the Time of Permanent War,” Critical Ethnic Studies Journal 5.1-2 (2019): 39-67.
- “Plenary Power and the Exceptionality of Igorots: Settler Imperialism and the Lewis and Clark Exposition,” Amerasia Journal 43.2 (2017): 98-121.
- “Motherhood and the Race for Sustainability,” Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices. Eds. Patti Duncan and Gina Wong. Bradford, ON: Demeter Press, 2014. 277-296.
- “The Currency of Visibility and the Paratext of ‘Evelyn Lau,’” Canadian Literature 199 (2008): 100-117.
- “Model Minorities, Models of Resistance: Native Figures in Asian Canadian Literature.” Canadian Literature 196 (2008): 96-112.
- “Passing Recognition: Obasan and the Borders of Asian American and Canadian Literary Criticism,” Comparative American Studies: An International Journal 5.3 (2007): 307-332.
Book reviews (selected):
- “In the Wake of Art and Beauty.” Rev. of Beauty Plus Pity and The Better Mother. Canadian Literature 216 (2013): 157-158.
- Rev. of “Terrain of Memory: A Japanese Canadian Memorial Project” Canadian Journal of Communication 37.2. (2012): 370-371.
- “Community Spaces.” Rev. of “Inside Chinatown: Ancient Culture in a New World.” Canadian Literature 207 (2010): 107-108.
Other (selected):
- “Women of Color Faculty Reimagining Institutional Spaces During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” co-authored with Patti Duncan and Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, Advance Journal: Individual and Institutional Transformation for Social Justice 2.3 (2021): https://doi.org/10.5399/osu/ADVJRNL.2.3.13.
- “Blinded by Color Blindness,” The Asian Reporter [Portland, OR] (February 2, 2015): 6+
- “Rethinking the ‘home’ in homesteading,” The Asian Reporter [Portland, OR] (November 3, 2014): 6.
- “Reviewing Writers of Color,” The Asian Reporter [Portland, OR] (April 7, 2014): 6.
- “Guantanamo Bay in Asian-American History,” The Asian Reporter [Portland, OR] (February 3, 2014): 6+.