I work on Japanese diasporic literature in the Americas. I spent last year in Yokohama studying senryu poetry written in the Santa Fe Internment Camp (1942-1945). I am interested in the literary construction of Nikkei identity and am also desperately trying to sort out the complex relationships among the categories “immigrant literature” (imin bungei), “colonial literature” (shokumin bungei), “Japanese-language literature” (nihongo bungaku), and “Asian-American” or “Asian-diasporic literature.”

I’m currently preparing for qualifying exams in Japanese, Spanish, and English.