University of Colorado Boulder
The liberal arts are more necessary today than ever before. The world benefits from the innovation, knowledge, and inspiration created by artists, humanists, and social and natural scientists. Society needs students trained broadly across the disciplines of the liberal arts who can think critically and creatively, discern the quality of information and sources, communicate clearly, and collaborate across difference.
As Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, I advocate for the liberal arts as the framework that unifies the diverse divisions, departments, and programs of our large and complex college. I strive to create environments in which faculty are supported in their research and creative endeavors, students succeed and feel a sense of belonging, and staff can thrive.
I’m also a Professor of Ethnic Studies who has taught classes on social movements, Asian American history and culture, comparative ethnic studies, sports, and Bruce Lee.
Having studied and taught at several colleges and universities across the U.S., I am thrilled to call CU my home. Boulder is a spectacular setting in which to write, teach, and learn.
Writing and Teaching
As a professor, I am interested in movement in two senses of the word. My latest book, Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee (NYU Press, 2022) explains how the iconic martial artist and actor Lee became a global superstar. His constant motion back and forth across the Pacific mirrored transpacific flows of culture, aesthetics, and martial arts in the 1960s and 1970s. Too elusive to be pinned down to any one location or culture, Bruce crossed borders and combined influences drawn from all those he encountered.
The image above of waves crashing onto rocks calls to mind Bruce’s quote:
Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
By that he meant to remind us that water can circumvent blockages or, alternately, grind cliffs into sand. It is adaptable and unrelenting, which is how struggles for justice must be.
My first two books examine movement in a different sense, as both narrate the Asian American movement, a social and cultural movement for justice by Asian Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. In Chains of Babylon: The Rise of Asian America (University Minnesota Press, 2009) and Rethinking the Asian American Movement (Routledge, 2012), I demonstrate how the Asian American movement drew upon influences from Black Power and anti-Vietnam War movements to create an alliance built on interethnic, interracial, and international solidarity and opposition to racism and imperialism.