About

My name is Donna Doan Anderson (she/her) and I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In short, my research interrogates the relationship between land policy and Asian migration in the U.S. Midwest from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.

My commitment to sharing the diverse stories of the Midwest is rooted in my experience as a mixed-raced Vietnamese American growing up in Omaha, Nebraska, and my previous career as a high school history teacher. While teaching, I struggled to find materials that adequately reflected the experiences of my upbringing and my students, who represented over thirty nationalities and spoke fifty different languages. For many, the Midwest does not evoke images of diversity and culture, which perpetuates coastal narratives in both U.S. History and Asian American studies scholarship. My hope is to support the current works that argue against the myth of the Midwest as local, isolated, insulated, and traditional and for my research to provide a more nuanced engagement with Asian American communities that reside there. 

In addition to my research, I serve as the graduate student representative for the Association for Asian American Studies History section and am heavily involved in the Asian American organizing community at UCSB. I also am a co-host of the New Books Network in Asian American Studies podcast and previously served as the Assistant Editor for the Journal of Asian American Studies (2021-2023). 

Thank you for taking the time to visit my site! I gladly accept any questions or inquiries about my research.