• Faculty
• Staff

Staff

Director

Ji-Yeon Yuh is an associate professor in the department of history. She specializes in Asian American history and Asian diasporas and is the author of Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America (New York University Press, 2002). A history of Korean women who immigrated to the United States as the wives of U.S. soldiers, this work examines the dynamics of race, culture, gender and nationalism from the perspective of Korean military brides. Her new project examines policies toward minority ethnic groups and their impact on the development of community and identity, as well as the ways in which experiences of Koreans in the diaspora are connected and divided by the history of the Korean peninsula in the twentieth century. As such, the study examines issues of imperialism, gender, history and memory, race and racialization, and the uses and misuses of ideology. She has also done research on refugees from North Korea, on socialist Koreans in China and Japan in the immediate post-WWII period, and on the Korean reunification movement in the United States. She is a co-founder of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea (www.asck.org), an organization devoted to educating policy makers and the public, and serves as their Media Liaison and National Spokesperson.

Email: yuh@northwestern.edu

Assistant Director

Jinah Kim (Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2006) Jinah Kim is Assistant Director and lecturer in the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University. Her current project studies how Asian American literature functions as part of a larger cross-cultural exchange that recovers, documents, and re-imagines the immigrant Pacific for the 21st century. She is also conducting research for her second project which looks at the relationship between the Mexican Bracero project and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII through the lens of the “third border’ or the policing of citizenship within national boundaries. She was born in Seoul, South Korea and moved to the U.S. when she was eight. After graduating with a BA in English from Columbia University, she worked as a union organizer for Local 2110, UAW-Clerical workers. She received her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from UC San Diego in 2006. Her areas of specialization include Asian American Literature, American wars in Asia, Comparative Asian American and Latina/o Cultural Studies, Film, Visual Culture, Print and Multi-Media Studies, Globalization and Gender and Sexuality studies.

Email: jinah-kim@northwestern.edu

Program Assistant

Gregory Jue graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. He was part of the “Third World Strike” that brought Ethnic Studies to the Berkeley campus in 1968. For a number of years after the strike, Greg continued to work both on campus and in the San Francisco Chinatown community. It was here that he was introduced to Mao’s ideas on revolution and human society – interestingly, by members of the Black Panther Party who had just come onto the national scene at the time, and by students from Hong Kong and Taiwan who were inspired by the movements of revolutionary China’s youth during the 60s. “There were times back then when we would be out protesting all day, then come home and wrangle all night with ideas about how to create a better society.” Today, Greg would like to see much more of that kind of spirit in the world.

Email: asianamerican@northwestern.edu

Student Interns

Arianna Hermosillo is from a southwest suburb of Chicago called Summit, just west of Midway Airport. Along with studying journalism and Latino Studies, she keeps herself busy, sometimes too busy, with activities such Alianza, Peace Project, WNUR 89.3 FM, and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.  She enjoys spending time with family and friends, fighting for social and economic justice, and trying new foods. Her mother wanted her to be a nun, but Arianna has other plans in mind. Sorry Mom!

Duong Nguyen is a fourth-year WCAS undergrad, majoring in economics. He comes from the north side of Chicago, IL. He loves to read books and watches tons of action/adventure movies. He is not an adept athlete but still enjoys a good game of soccer once in a while. He is a morning person, often waking up before the sun does. He hopes to be involved in the Asian American community at Northwestern. His nickname is Z.