Pensri Ho


Pensri Ho Assistant Professor Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2000
I am a cultural anthropologists and Asian Americanist. My current research interests center on Asian America, transnational ethnic community development, international migration (Asian and Latino), grassroots community organizations, middle class and elite class dynamics, family and intergenerational dynamics, gender, sexuality, ethnographic film, and the arts as sites of identity manipulation/creation/assertion. My fieldwork sites are in the United States: southern California and the Washington, DC metro area. My dissertation analyzed how early access to class privilege and Pacific Rim socio-political and economic trends shaped the racial identities of urban and suburban young Asian American professionals in southern California. The study challenged the homogenizing effect of American Anglicized middle class ascendancy, American racial identity paradigms, and Asian Diasporic allegiances, while introducing more dynamic racial identity alternatives. My current research project is an examination of the post-1960 development and transformation of a Washington DC metro area Chinese American community of highly educated professionals and their families. The project examines how the local community-based organizations, schools, U.S. Federal science and technology agencies, embassy and consulate officials, and Asian American advocacy organizations and politicians in the Washington, D.C. area shape the cultural citizenship of an increasingly heterogeneous 1st and 2nd generation Chinese American community dispersed over four adjacent neighborhoods. Specializations East Asian diaspora, Asian and Latino transnational migration, comparative US race theories, Asian America (Chinese, Pilipino, Indian, Vietnamese), corporate anthropology, urban anthropology, ethnographic film, political anthropology. Graduate Courses Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; Introduction to Ethnographic Film; Asian America; Transnational Migration; Qualitative Research Methods; World Ethnographies; Contesting Identity Politics in American Corporate Culture Selected Publications 2003 - "Performing the 'Oriental': Professionals Who Problematize the Asian Model Minority Myth" In Journal of Asian American Studies Vol. 6(2): 149-175. 2001 - "Young Asian American Professionals In Los Angeles." In Contemporary Asian Pacific American Communities: Intersections and Divergences, eds. Linda Trinh Vo and Rick Bonus. Temple University Press.

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Southern California, 2000

I am a cultural anthropologists and Asian Americanist. My current research interests center on Asian America, transnational ethnic community development, international migration (Asian and Latino), grassroots community organizations, middle class and elite class dynamics, family and intergenerational dynamics, gender, sexuality, ethnographic film, and the arts as sites of identity manipulation/creation/assertion. My fieldwork sites are in the United States: southern California and the Washington, DC metro area.

My dissertation analyzed how early access to class privilege and Pacific Rim socio-political and economic trends shaped the racial identities of urban and suburban young Asian American professionals in southern California. The study challenged the homogenizing effect of American Anglicized middle class ascendancy, American racial identity paradigms, and Asian Diasporic allegiances, while introducing more dynamic racial identity alternatives.

My current research project is an examination of the post-1960 development and transformation of a Washington DC metro area Chinese American community of highly educated professionals and their families. The project examines how the local community-based organizations, schools, U.S. Federal science and technology agencies, embassy and consulate officials, and Asian American advocacy organizations and politicians in the Washington, D.C. area shape the cultural citizenship of an increasingly heterogeneous 1st and 2nd generation Chinese American community dispersed over four adjacent neighborhoods.

Specializations

East Asian diaspora, Asian and Latino transnational migration, comparative US race theories, Asian America (Chinese, Pilipino, Indian, Vietnamese), corporate anthropology, urban anthropology, ethnographic film, political anthropology.

Graduate Courses

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; Introduction to Ethnographic Film; Asian America; Transnational Migration; Qualitative Research Methods; World Ethnographies; Contesting Identity Politics in American Corporate Culture

Selected Publications

2003 - "Performing the 'Oriental': Professionals Who Problematize the Asian Model Minority Myth" In Journal of Asian American Studies Vol. 6(2): 149-175.
2001 - "Young Asian American Professionals In Los Angeles." In Contemporary Asian Pacific American Communities: Intersections and Divergences, eds. Linda Trinh Vo and Rick Bonus. Temple University Press.