PhD Student
East Asia: Japan
I am a doctoral student in the History Department at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in the intersections of race and diaspora in modern and contemporary Asia-Pacific. My particular focus is on post-1945 Korea and its global diaspora.
My interests lie in how Koreans understood race during and after the Cold War in the context of American military presence and post-imperial Japanese influence. My research seeks to bring together the domestic history of South Korea, mainly around the period of democratization movement against military rule (1961-1987), and the global history of the Korean diaspora. I examine how Korean people perceived Korean American and Zainichi Korean (ethnic Koreans in Japan) racial experiences. Through this, I interrogate how South Koreans used, invoked, and consumed the diaspora's racialized imageries in political discourses about the United States and Japan, especially in protesting narratives vis-à-vis nationhood and victimhood. By contextualizing such discourses within broader circuits, I aspire to contribute to scholarship on transnational histories of race and empire across the Asia-Pacific region.
More broadly, I am also interested in Japanese colonialism, minoritized peoples in Korea, Asian Americans/Canadians, oral history, gender history, and postcolonial theory.
Research Interests
- Race and empire
- Migration and diaspora
- Identity formation, oral history, memories
- Cold War and Post-Cold War
- Postcolonial theory
Education
Master of Arts, History, University of Toronto, 2024.
Honours Bachelor of Arts, History (with High Distinction), University of Toronto, 2023.
Awards & Fellowships
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2025
SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2024
University College Alumni Scholarship & Bursary Fund, University College, Toronto, 2023
Dr. David Chu Scholarship in Asia-Pacific Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, 2023
Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s program, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2023
James Harris Scholarship, University College, Toronto, 2022
James Harris Scholarship, University College, Toronto, 2019
Conference Organization
Co-organizer, “Kaleidoscope Perspectives: Identity and Change.” Graduate History Society, Annual Graduate History Symposium (University of Toronto), 2024.
