Laureen Hom
San José State University
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Laureen D. Hom is an associate professor at San José State University in the Department of Environmental Studies and Urban & Regional Planning. She received her PhD in Planning, Policy, and Design with an emphasis in Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. Her research interests are at the intersection of ethnic studies, urban studies, and policy studies. Her work specifically examines the spatial politics of community formations and political representation in ethnic spaces in Southern California and covers issues related to urban and racial politics, participatory governance, community organizations and organizing, community development, and gentrification. Her research has been published in AAPI Nexus, Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies, Journal of Planning Education & Research, Journal of Urban Affairs, Public Integrity, and Urban Affairs Review, as well as policy reports and chapters in several edited volumes about community development and Asian American communities. In June 2024, she published her book, The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles (UC Press), that is a culmination of her ethnographic work on gentrification and community politics in Los Angeles Chinatown.
New Books in Conversation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future of Los An
This panel brings together two authors to discuss new books that provide interdisciplinary perspectives on the development of Los Angeles Chinatown. Drawing on historical and ethnographic methods, authors William Gow (Ethnic Studies, CSU Sacramento) and Laureen Hom (Political Science, Cal Poly Pomona) illuminate the complex dynamics around community formation, spatial politics, performance, and representation that have shaped one of the largest, yet most under-researched, urban Chinatowns in the United States.
In Performing Chinatown: Hollywood, Tourism, and the Making of a Chinese American Community (Stanford University Press, 2024), William Gow offers a social-cultural history of LA's Chinatown’s relationship to Hollywood during the era of immigration exclusion and restriction. Focusing on the 1930s and 1940s, he chronicles how seemingly everyday Chinese Americans leveraged performance opportunities both in Chinatown and in the background of Hollywood films to negotiate understandings of race and national belonging. His book draws on more than forty oral histories and more than a dozen archival and family collections while bridging methodologies from community history and film studies.
Complementarily, in The Power of Chinatown: Searching for Spatial Justice in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2024), Laureen D. Hom examines contemporary contests over development and gentrification in LA's Chinatown since the 1970s. Her ethnographic study analyzes how Chinese Americans have attempted to build community power through place-based organizing and the implications of that organizing for political representation and community formations for Chinatown. Her work brings together critical geography, urban studies, and political science frameworks.
Together, these new books provide interdisciplinary insights into Chinatown as a dynamic site of community formation, cultural representation, and spatial politics across the 20th and 21st centuries. Moderated by Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (UC Irvine), this panel will discuss the synergies between historical and contemporary perspectives on LA Chinatown while reflecting the conference's goal to reexamine and remap Asian American Studies across disciplines, time periods, and regions.
Navigating the Potentials and Challenges of a 1460 World: Workshopping Strategies and Resources
California passed an Ethnic Studies requirement for all California State University students (over 470,000 students). This workshop seeks to gather best practices, help think through roadblocks, and develop strategic plans to implement or start Asian American Studies programs and curricula.
The Politics of Racialized Space: Community Formation and Resistance (Social Sciences Caucus)
The papers in this panel analyze the intersections of community formation, grassroots mobilization, and cultural representation in ethnic and racialized spaces. They analyze the dynamic urban and suburban spaces where Asian Americans are concentrated, covering multiple sites within the Los Angeles, New York City, Orange County, and Silicon Valley region. The papers address how immigration flows, socioeconomic inequalities, housing segregation, suburban/urban redevelopment, and technological transformations affect and determine the possibilities for organizing resistance and cultural change. These research projects are also attentive to the unprecedented geopolitical and structural forces that have realigned and altered ethnic formations and racial relations. The panel includes scholars trained as historians, political scientists, sociologists, and urban planners who will discuss the shifting resources and discourses that activists and groups use to mobilize, navigate collaborations, and shape public policies. These projects provide insights into future struggles of sustainability and cultural preservation and innovation as well as potential opportunities for communities to change the built and natural environment.
Laureen Hom
San José State University
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