Giselle Dejamco Cunanan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies Program at California State University Sacramento. Giselle earned a PhD in American Studies with a Minor in Sociology from Indiana University Bloomington. Her dissertation, “Ethnic Studies Now: Racial Labor in a Multicultural Moment,” examines the social movements for Ethnic Studies in K-12 public schools in California and the Pacific Northwest. The dissertation argues that in today’s multicultural moment, institutions lock ethnic studies organizers in a liberal trap of inclusion, eliciting and requiring their work, and co-opting their efforts to transform schools. She also examines organizers’ care work, the excesses of their racial labor that cannot be absorbed by any institution.

Giselle earned a Master of Arts in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University where she also taught for Pin@y Educational Partnership, a service-learning organization that develops and trains teachers in ethnic studies critical pedagogy. At Gonzaga University, Giselle is currently teaching Intro to Ethnic Studies, Intro to Asian American Studies, and Critical Filipinx Studies. Her broader research pursuits include examining the afterlives of empire as it relates to US-based Filipinxs.