Current Projects
My first book, Returns of War (forthcoming with NYU Press) reconsiders the historical legacy of the Vietnam War through the loss of South Vietnam, the former ally and puppet regime of the United States that fell to Northern communist forces in 1975. Through a global-historical lens, I investigate how individuals and groups today remember South Vietnam, and how the postwar experiences of South Vietnamese relate to other groups like Tibetans, South Koreans, Cubans, and Iraqis. South Vietnam's abandonment by the United States and its formal collapse, I argue, produces a particular kind of critical refugee consciousness around ideas of historical memory, nationalism, citizenship, cultural belonging, military service, community formation, and postcolonial freedom-seeking. Using digital archives, media discourse analysis, ethnography, and oral history, this interdisciplinary project connects global/international/area studies with identity and migration studies.
I am working manuscript that considers the techno-Orientalist views of Asians through issues of science and technology. Through the examination of popular texts and political economy, I explore the U.S. discourses that shape racialized gendered ideas about them as alien outsiders to Western civilization.
As a digital scholar, I am working on an elecronic book that documents the lives of displaced migrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia in global border cities. As an interdisciplinary project that combines GIS (geographic information systems) with data visualization, my aim is to provide a multi-media platform that delivers a dynamic way of showcasing and disseminating information about migrants from the Global South.
My first book, Returns of War (forthcoming with NYU Press) reconsiders the historical legacy of the Vietnam War through the loss of South Vietnam, the former ally and puppet regime of the United States that fell to Northern communist forces in 1975. Through a global-historical lens, I investigate how individuals and groups today remember South Vietnam, and how the postwar experiences of South Vietnamese relate to other groups like Tibetans, South Koreans, Cubans, and Iraqis. South Vietnam's abandonment by the United States and its formal collapse, I argue, produces a particular kind of critical refugee consciousness around ideas of historical memory, nationalism, citizenship, cultural belonging, military service, community formation, and postcolonial freedom-seeking. Using digital archives, media discourse analysis, ethnography, and oral history, this interdisciplinary project connects global/international/area studies with identity and migration studies.
I am working manuscript that considers the techno-Orientalist views of Asians through issues of science and technology. Through the examination of popular texts and political economy, I explore the U.S. discourses that shape racialized gendered ideas about them as alien outsiders to Western civilization.
As a digital scholar, I am working on an elecronic book that documents the lives of displaced migrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia in global border cities. As an interdisciplinary project that combines GIS (geographic information systems) with data visualization, my aim is to provide a multi-media platform that delivers a dynamic way of showcasing and disseminating information about migrants from the Global South.
