about me:
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My scholarly work focuses on Asian diasporas in the United States, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, which I examine through the transnational lens of migration and the circulation of social and cultural capitals in the processes the dislocation and relocation of immigrant groups. I study how these distributed and diverse communities of migrants, refugees, and their offspring reproduce and transmit their collective experiences, material cultures, and traditional cultural practices across time and space through multigenerational relationship, fictive kinships, and professional networks and with the mediation of digital technologies and performances of style and aesthetics. My research includes the analysis of gendered narratives in a wide array of activities and sources: family letters, cultural heritage organizations, food practices at home and in restaurants, and art/craft-making in both Japanese American incarceration camps during WWII and historically Asian American sororities. I collect oral histories and conduct archival research and ethnographic fieldwork.
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My inquiries into these research areas began with the investigation of my own family’s immigrant experiences, exploring their transnational journeys of resettlement through a series of auto-ethnographies that culminated in a documentary film about my ethnic Chinese grandmother who was born in Malaysia and came to America, late in her life, in the 1980s. The film, “Homecoming,” won multiple Best Documentary awards at film festivals. I have contributed to books, journals, and encyclopedias in the areas of archival science, Asian American studies, and gender studies. I have given invited presentations around the world in the United States, Canada, Korea, and Taiwan. In addition to my written scholarship, I have written and directed several documentary films; my films have been shown internationally at film festivals, academic conferences, art galleries, public libraries, and on public television. I have received fellowships, grants, and awards from organizations and institutions such as the American Library Association, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Institute of American Cultures, and American Anthropology Association.
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Currently, I am engaged in five inter-related research projects that examine the transnational circulation of knowledge practices through scientific technologies, master crafting techniques, and visual aesthetics in professional career-building networks, social organizations, and civic groups within various diasporic communities of practice.
I have over fifteen years teaching experience in higher education. I was a teaching assistant for the UCLA Film and Asian American Studies Departments during in graduate school from my master’s and doctorate degrees. With my M.F.A., I became a lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department where I taught upper-division courses about multiethnic communities and video ethnography. Many of the works that the students produced in my classes have screened in film festivals and are shown in other Asian American studies courses at UCLA. In addition, students from my classes have gone on to have successful careers in the entertainment industry as actors, screenwriters, comedians, and directors.
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I also served as the Assistant Director for the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications at the Asian American Studies Center for seven years, where I developed, produced, and promoted media about and by Asian Americans and their communities. The Center's educational media projects and documentaries have been funded by the National Endowment of the Arts and California Humanities Foundation.
I originally hail from the East Coast, growing up in Maryland and attending college in Pennsylvania. I have a B.A. in East Asian Studies, graduating cum laude. I received my Ph.D. from UCLA in 2015. I have a M.F.A. in Directing from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and TV.
