AMCS Faculty
Edward Park- AMCS Director
Edward J.W. Park is the Director of American Cultures Studies Program at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies and a Master's degree in City and Regional Planning, both at the University of California at Berkeley. His research topics include immigration policy, race relations, urban studies, and economic sociology. His publications include "A New American Dilemma? Asian Americans and Latinos in Race Relations Theorizing" (Journal of Asian American Studies, 1999); "Competing Visions: Political Formation of Korean Americans in Los Angeles, 1992-1997" (Amerasia Journal, 1998); and "Korean Americans and the Crisis of the Liberal Coalition: Immigrants and Politics in Los Angeles" (In Governing American Cities: Inter-Ethnic Coalitions, Competition, and Conflict: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001).
AMCS Fellows
Erika Pérez
Erika Perez received a B.A. in U.S. history from U.C. Berkeley and an M.A. in U.S. history with an emphasis in gender from San Francisco State University. Her research and teaching interests include colonial encounters and gender history in the 19th century U.S. and the American West. Erika will receive her Ph.D. in U.S. History from UCLA in August 2010. Her dissertation entitled "Colonial Intimacies: Interethnic Kinship, Sexuality, and Marriage in Southern California, 1769-1885" evaluates colonialism through the lens of intimate relations, specifically among California Indians, Spanish-Mexicans, Anglo-Americans, and Europeans.
Anton Smith
Anton Smith earned his B.A. in Afro-American Studies and Classics from the University of Virginia and a M.A. in Afro-American Studies from UCLA. He went on to receive a M.A. and Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California. His research examines how African American writers experience faith in a society that has historically devalued their humanity and intellectual abilities. Dr. Smith has taught courses in composition and African American literature at UCLA and Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside.
Jane Yamashiro
Jane H. Yamashiro holds a BA in Sociology and Japanese Studies from UC San Diego and an MA and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Her dissertation, “When the Diaspora Returns:Transnational Racial and Ethnic Identity Formation among Japanese Americans in Global Tokyo” focuses on Japanese American migrant experiences and identity constructions in Tokyo to comparatively examine race and ethnicity in the U.S. continent, Hawai‘i, and Japan. Her research and teaching interests include comparative racial and ethnic studies, ethnic identity, social inequality, transnationalism, globalization and international migration.
AMCS Lecturers
James Bany is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at UC Irvine and holds a bachelor's degree from Pacific Lutheran University with minors in Psychology and Religion. His dissertation research examines identity and civic engagement in a multi-generational Latino civil rights organization in Southern California.
Daniel Borgia earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature with an emphasis in Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her interests in postcolonial and transnational feminisms, Latin American Studies, Hemispheric American Studies and Latino Studies have led to her current book project linking feminist subtexts in women-authored Gothic and Fantastic stories of the Americas.
Rana Sharif is completing her Ph.D. in Women's Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include Arab and Arab American racializations post 9/11, cross-cultural analysis of occupation and militerization, and the intersection of gender, race, class and power.
Maria Valenzuela is a Ph.D. candidate in Literature at the University of Notre Dame and holds a Bachelor's degree in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.