Class of 2025
(She/They)
Hometown: Emporia, Virginia
Major: Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Minor: Asian American and Diaspora Studies
Mellon Project: Life-Worlds from the Periphery and/to the Metropole
Northern Virginia (NOVA) is home to numerous diasporas including those from Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. The interests of the American empire have impacted what privileges each diaspora was afforded. America’s paternalistic sympathy for Vietnamese people enabled citizenship to many refugees throughout and after the late 20th century. Because of how America funded violent insurgents in Central America, it was also during this time, and soon booming in the proceeding years, that an influx of largely undocumented immigrants started to arrive in this area. These distinct lineages converge in one spot in NOVA: Eden Center (Eden), the largest Vietnamese strip mall in the American East. My first research inquiry concerns racial capitalism, the theory that the functions of capitalism depend on the racializations of populations, as coined by Cedric Robinson in 1983 (Robinson 1983). How has the American empire impacted how diasporas operate at Eden? My second research inquiry considers the life-worlds Vietnamese diasporic agents have made in Eden.
Academic Interests: Asian, diasporic, queer cultural productions / ethnographic work in Northern Virginia / Empire, gender studies
Brief Bio: My goal for my senior year is to have the best of fun. My fun fact is that I am really good at parking (reverse and parallel).