Discussants:

Janelle Wong received her PhD from the Department of Political Science at Yale University. She is Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the University of Maryland in 2012, she was at the University of Southern California in the Departments of Political Science and American Studies and Ethnicity. Wong is author of Immigrants, Evangelicals and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change (2018, Russell Sage Foundation Press), Democracy’s Promise: Immigrants and American Civic Institutions (2006, University of Michigan Press) and co-author of two books on Asian American politics. The most recent is Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and their Political Identities (2011, Russell Sage Foundation), based on the first nationally representative survey of Asian Americans’ political attitudes and behavior. This groundbreaking study of Asian Americans was conducted in eight different languages with six different Asian national origin groups. Wong has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, Irvine Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. She was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, in 2006-2007. Wong’s research is on race, immigration, and political mobilization. As a scholar and teacher, Wong has worked closely with social service, labor, civil rights, and media organizations that serve the Asian American population.

For the past seven years, Anam Hussain has been deeply engaged in cross-movement organizing, addressing critical issues from gun violence prevention to reproductive justice. Currently, She is a senior at American University, majoring in International Studies with a concentration on the Middle East & North Africa. Anam was born and raised in the South—a place she considers the birthplace of true progressive movements in the country. As a Muslim, she embraces her faith through the lens of liberation theology, which guides her commitment to collective liberation.

My-Anh Nguyen (they/he) is a trans-masculine, non-binary Vietnamese American architect at architrave, PC and organizer on Piscataway land (Washington, DC). They approach their work with the belief in the capacity of design to address the intersectional and intergenerational challenges of the built environment through community building. My-Anh received their Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Virginia where they now serve on the UVA A-School Young Alumni Executive Council as co-vice chair. My-Anh co-founded Emergent Grounds for Design Education, a research and advocacy collective, archiving and uplifting student and alumni campaigns for anti-racist design pedagogy. As an activist and advocate with DMU and in DC, My-Anh seeks to bridge communities and practice solidarity among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

Rae Jereza (they/them) is a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist who researches social media and white supremacy. Their book project interrogates “online hate” as a metadiscursive framework for understanding racist content.