President
Mary Yu Danico
Term: 2012-14
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
3801 West Temple Blvd.
Pomona, CA 91768
Email: mkydanico AT aaastudies DOT org
Mary Danico is a professor of sociology and Vice-chair of the Psychology and Sociology Department at Cal Poly Pomona. She is the current president of the Association for Asian American Studies (2012-2014). As president she states, “I am fortunate to have such dynamic board members who share the vision of having AAAS be the nexus of all things Asian Pacific Islander American. The stellar scholarship, advocacy, activism, and public policy work of our association members highlight the growing significance of Asian American Studies as a praxis of education and community engagement.” She is the author of two books “The 1.5 Generation: Becoming Korean American in Hawaii” and “Asian American Issues” and the co-editor of “Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy” with Dr. Brett Stockdill. She is currently writing her 4th book on Korean American Diaspora. She was a senior Fulbright scholar in Korea 2005-2006 where she examined reverse migration of Korean Americans and Asian American Diaspora.
Secretary/Treasurer
Anna Gonzalez
Term: 2011-14
Lewis and Clark College Portland, OR
Email: annakgonzalez AT gmail DOT com
Anna Gonzalez is the Dean of Students for Lewis and Clark College. As the campus' senior student affairs officer, Anna oversees all facets of the co-curricular life of students. Before coming to Lewis and Clark College, Anna was the Associate Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and before then was the Associate Dean of Students at the University of California Irvine. Anna sailed four times as Dean of Students with the Semester at Sea Program. She recently published an article in the book Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Higher Education: Research and Perspectives on Identity, Leadership, and Success (Ching and Agbayani, 2012). As secretary/treasurer for the association, she is proud to have supervised the move of the Secretariat Office from Cornelle to UIUC and then from UIUC to the University of Minnesota and ensured the fiscal growth and stability of the association. Anna received her B.S. from Loyola Marymount University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University.
Regional Representatives
Interior West/South
Jennifer Ho
Term: 2012-14
Department of English & Comparative Literature
UNC Chapel Hill
Greenlaw Hall, CB#3520
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520
Email:jho AT email.unc DOT edu
Jennifer Ann Ho is currently an Associate Professor in the English and Comparative Literature Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research and teaching interests are in Asian American, Multiethnic American and Contemporary American literature and popular culture. Her first book, Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels (Routledge Press, 2005) examines the intersection of coming-of-age, ethnic identity formation, and foodways in late 20th CenturyAsian American coming-of-age narratives and American popular culture. Her current book manuscript, “What ARE You?” Racial Ambiguity in Contemporary Asian American Culture investigates the theme of racial ambiguity in various modes of cultural production (oral history, new media, literature, film, sports journalism) created predominantly by and about Asian Americans in the late-20th century.
Mid-Atlantic
Jennifer Hayashida
Term: 2013-15
Jennifer Hayashida is Director of the Asian American Studies Program (AASP) at Hunter College, The City University of New York, the only program of its kind in the 23-campus CUNY system. Her collaborative and individual work as an artist, writer, and translator has been published and exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. Fields of interest include representations of the immigrant and the welfare state, cross-genre literary practices, experimental documentary film/video, and Asian American community activism.
Mid-West
Martin Manalansan
Term: 2012-14
Department of Anthropology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
109 Davenport Hall
607 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
Email: manalans AT illinois DOT edu
Martin Manalansan’s broad research interests include the following: sociocultural anthropology, sexuality and gender, immigration and globalization, cities and modernity, food and culture, critical theory, performance, public health, Filipino diaspora, Asian Americans, North America, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.
New England/Central and Eastern Canada
Catherine Fung
Term: 2012-14
Department of English and Media Studies
Bentley University
175 Forest Street
Waltham, MA 02452
Email: cfung AT bentley DOT edu
Catherine Fung is an assistant professor in the English and Media Studies Department at Bentley University. Her research interests include Asian American literature, 20th Century American culture and literature, Post-colonial theory and literature, cultural studies, critical race studies, law and literature, and diaspora studies. Her dissertation, entitled, Perpetual Refugee: Memory of the Vietnam War in Asian American Literature, analyzes the conditions that allow for refugees to be represented, and examines the ways in which memory of the Vietnam War continues to determine discourses surrounding immigration and citizenship. She is currently the Vice President of the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies (CAALS) of the American Literature Association.
Northern California/Nevada
Grace Yoo
Term: 2012-14
Asian American Studies
San Francisco State University
Email: grace Dot yoo Dot phd AT gmail Dot com
Grace J. Yoo is a professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University. She is a community-based scholar, researcher and teacher devoted to teaching and understanding the social and health problems impacting Asian America. Her work has appeared in peer-reviewed publications such as AAPI Nexus, Ethnicity and Health, Peace Review, Cross-Cultural Gerontology and Journal of Cancer Education. She is the co-editor (with Edith Chen) of The Encyclopedia of Asian American Issues Today (ABC-Clio), She is also co-editor (with Mai Nhung Le and Alan Oda) of the Handbook of Asian American Health (Springer Publishing). Currently, she is also an editor to a forthcoming textbook, Koreans in America: History, Culture and Identity (Cognella Academic Publishing). As a student, administrator and now professor, she has been committed for the past 25 years to the development and growth of Asian American studies on several different college campuses.
Pacific Northwest, Hawai’i and Pacific Islands, and Western Canada
Rod Labrador is a 1.5-generation Filipino American—he was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the U.S. during elementary school, growing up in southeast San Diego. He is a graduate of the University of Rochester (BA), University of Hawai‘i atMānoa (MA), and earned his doctorate in anthropology from UCLA. Prior to his current position as an assistant professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, he worked for nearly a decade as the director of a university-based college access program in a low-income, urban Honolulu community comprised primarily of Filipinos, Samoans, and Native Hawaiians. He has lived and worked in Honolulu for nearly the past 20 years. From 1999-2004, he was the co-director (with Erin Kahunawaika’ala Wright) of the UCLA Hawai‘i Travel Study Program and he has been been the sole director of the summer program since 2005. His research and community work focuses on race, ethnicity, class, culture, language, migration, education, hip hop, and cultural production in Hawai‘i, the US, and the Philippines.
Southern California
Stella Oh is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Women’s Studies at Loyola Marymount University. She received her doctorate at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. Professor Oh’s area of expertise is Asian American literature and aesthetics. She has presented her work on race, gender, and narrative ethics at several international conferences. Her research has also appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory, AJWS: Asian Journal of Women’s Studies, and Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies. She has also contributed chapters to anthologies including Mine Okubo: Following Her Own Road, and Passage to Manhattan: Critical Essays on Meena Alexander. Professor Oh also co-organized The World Conference on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery in 2007 which addressed war crimes and violence against women. In addition to her scholarly pursuits, Professor Oh actively works with the Korean American community on issues of sex trafficking. She is currently working on her book manuscript which explores racial and gender formations of Asian Americans during the Cold War. Professor Oh teaches Asian American Women’s Experience, Feminist Theories, Literature by Women of Color, and Women of Color in the United States.
Graduate Student
James Zarsadiaz
Term: 2012-14
Department of History at Northwestern University.
Email: jfzdiaz AT U DOT northwestern DOT edu
James Zarsadiaz is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Northwestern University. He specializes in twentieth century United States history with particular interest in Asian American studies, comparative urban/suburban studies, oral history, and cultural studies. His dissertation examines the relationship between sub/urban planning, immigration, and myths of the frontier and U.S. West in post-WWII Southern California. James has forthcoming work in Amerasia Journal and Journal of Social History, and is a 2010 recipient of the Northwestern Lacey Baldwin Smith Prize for Teaching Excellence. He is a formal graduate representatives for American Studies Association and is the founding chair of the Northwestern Ethnic Studies Graduate Student Committee. He holds a B.A. in American Studies and Political Science from George Washington University. James is originally from Walnut, California.