Kai Hang Cheang returns this fall as an assistant professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies after spending the last two years as a visiting scholar.
Growing up as the grandson of two migrant laborers and the son of parents who didn't have the chance to attend college, Cheang says he never imagined that he would find an intellectual home in the academy. It was at the University of Macau in the former Portuguese colony of China where his hunger and enthusiasm for knowledge was nurtured. He went on to Southern Illinois University on a full scholarship for his master's degree and University of California, Riverside for his Ph.D. in Asian American Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies.
"I see my peripatetic journey as typical of the lives of immigrants in the U.S. and around the world," he says. "What is not common, I think, is the opportunity I've found at Portland State to apply my whole person, including my queer, gendered, disabled and immigrant experiences, to my work of research and teaching. Because of that, I count myself very fortunate."
Cheang's research focuses on women, gender and sexuality studies, Asian American Studies, Asian Studies, and environmental studies.
"As a politically engaged and interdisciplinary scholar, I bring these disparate fields together with an eye towards their synergistic and transformative possibilities," he says. "Trained as a cultural critic, I attend to the content and form of cultural productions composed by women, queer and trans* artists and activists, looking for the political wisdom and life-giving lessons they've found in the face of adversity."
Two current projects include a monograph examining post-Umbrella Movement Hong Kong literature, art and media through the lens of queer and feminist theories, and a book focusing on linkages between racial justice, LGBTQ+ struggles and climate justice by contextualizing them in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
What makes this work meaningful to you?
My research into issues like climate change, gender-based anti-Asian racism, and Sino-US relations is meaningful to me because it engages with issues that are intimately linked to my everyday life as a queer immigrant from China living in Portland.
What drew you to PSU and in particular, the School of Gender, Race and Nations?
The creativity and intellectual verve of the students at PSU has been one of the most gratifying parts of my time as a visiting scholar. Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to teach and interact with graduate and undergraduate students inside the classroom and through panel discussions in the annual Queer Student of Color conference. Though these experiences have been mostly online, which isn’t the most conventional modality to communicate and make community, my students have stepped up to the challenge posed by COVID with their creativity and determination. So, when I was offered this tenure-track job, I accepted it happily, knowing that I would continue to have the opportunity to help PSU’s students succeed.
I truly couldn’t ask for a better academic home than the School of Gender, Race, and Nations. I was already familiar with the work of Grace Dillon and Walidah Imarisha when I was a graduate student at UCR, so being colleagues with them—scholars whose work I admire—is an honor. What is more, the program’s commitment in the line of interdisciplinary work that is dedicated to the cause of social justice coincides with the goals of my scholarship and transdisciplinary projects.
What’s a course you’re particularly excited to teach?
I am particularly excited to teach “Introduction to Climate Fictions and Justice: A Femin-Queer Approach” in the winter term. The course will draw on my latest research on the intersections of climate change and the LGBTQ+ community, which, according to research, is the most vulnerable population in the face of extreme weather patterns. The course will study the writing and speeches of feminist, queer, and trans* climate activists from the US, Jamaica and Fiji that are at the forefront of the climate justice movement. We will also read “cli-fi” or climate fictions by QTBIPOC as we contextualize climate change in the longer histories of settler colonialism, environmental racism, and industrialization—all with the goal of strategizing how we might move toward a sustainable future. As part of the course project, students will be invited to come up with adaptive and mitigative practices that we can act on in the advancement of climate justice.
What’s one thing you hope students who take a class with you will come away with?
Following the theory and praxis of feminist and queer scholars like Grace Hong and Roderick Ferguson, my lessons and assignments work to illuminate for students the interconnectedness of the lives of minoritized populations. I hope my students will leave my classes better caretakers of themselves, their loved ones, and the world after knowing that we each hold the key towards collective liberation.
What are you most looking forward to doing in your first year at PSU?
I look forward to working with my colleagues in the Asian American and Pacific Islander initiative as well as APANO (Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon) to establish a Pacific Islander and Asian American Studies program at PSU. As part of that effort, I will be teaching an Introduction to Asian American Studies course—I look forward to teaching that class too (!) as I am eager to connect with AAPI-identifying students and their allies.
Anything else you’d like to share with us?
I attribute my interest in analyzing the formal properties of arts, exhibitions, and performances to my training in ballroom dancing during college. I hope to be able to pick that back up again in Portland. (I hear there is a 1-credit Ballroom Dance class at PSU, kudos to PE!)
I would also like to share that I am a foodie, so students may have already seen me waiting for food in front of the food carts around campus. I am also trying to be better at cooking healthy meals. So, if you have any recipes, or simply to say hi, email me at kaihang.cheang@pdx.edu!