research

My father was born in Thailand in 1945—a time when Thais, like most people of Asian descent, were barred from immigration to the U.S. through exclusionary policies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was not until during and after the Vietnam War, in which Thailand was an ally to the United States, that Thais, including my father, migrated to the U.S. in large numbers. The possibility of migration to the U.S. for Thais during this time period largely depended upon national alliance in empire. My research considers this relationship between U.S. empire in Southeast Asia and the racialization of Thai Americans. I use performative and embodied storytelling methods to examine, reimagine, and critique these communicative processes. In the broadest sense, I’m interested in how stories reveal the ways that power emerges and operates in our everyday lives.

featured projects

“PLOY : An Immigrant Daughter’s Archival Survival Strategy”

Abstract: Transnational human migration is commonly conceptualized as the moment a person crosses national borders. In “PLOY : An Immigrant Daughter’s Archival Survival Strategy,” I advance a framework of migration in which migration is an ongoing embodied and relational process, one that continues after a person crosses national borders. This framework maintains that migration exists as a meaningful concept because of the social, political, cultural, and historical contexts that gives this type of mobility meaning. I use a performative novel methodology to construct and represent this argument; a performative novel methodology uses fiction and the novel as a performative text and as a mode of inquiry and critique. The performative novel component of the dissertation is titled PLOY and illustrates a mixed-documented Thai American family’s ongoing and uneven relationships to the U.S. immigration system.

Keywords: performative novel, personal narrative performance, Asian American literature, Thai America, US empire

“‘I’m Sorry My Hair is Blocking Your Smile’ : A Performative Assemblage and Intercultural Dialogue on the Politics of Hair and Place.”  (2019)
With Bryant Keith Alexander, Ayshia Elizabeth Stephenson, Katty Alhayek, Timothy Sutton, Carmen Hernandez Ojeda, and Claudio Moreira.
In International Review of Qualitative Research

Abstract: This performative essay is an instance of embodied writing, an assemblage by seven individuals responding to a shared moment from different perspectives on the politics of hair. In the process we engage the sociological imagination as we turn private troubles into public issues, or better yet, we collectively show how public issues are our private troubles.

Keywords: politics of hair, embodied writing, assemblage, autoethnography, performative intercultural engagement

** Listen to Dr Ploy read “My First Haircut” from the article **

Scholars of Color in Communication (ongoing project)
Founding co-chair (2020-2021, 2017-2019) and Secretary (2019-2020)

Scholars of Color in Communication (SCC) is an organization for graduate students, faculty, and staff of color in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The purpose of this group is threefold. First, to create a space for networking and mentoring, as well as to share concerns, strategies, hope, and achievements. Second, to advocate for institutional support that increases the enrollment, hiring, and retention of people of color—students, faculty, and staff—in Communication as a department and as a discipline. Third, to fight systemic oppression, specifically around issues of race, by denouncing racism and xenophobia, and promoting an intersectional understanding of race with concern for class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and religion. SCC hosts monthly member meetings, gathers intergenerational panel discussions at the National Communication Association with scholars of color from across the discipline, and hosts events, lectures, and workshops open to the UMass community throughout the year.

For a more comprehensive list of my work, please see my curriculum vitae.