Martin Joseph Ponce

Candidate statement

I am honored to be nominated as President-Elect for an organization that has sustained, inspired, and enriched my work as a teacher and scholar of Asian American, African American, and queer of color literatures and cultures at Ohio State University. Since attending my first AAAS conference in 2005 while completing my dissertation on Filipinx American literature and U.S. empire, I have cherished the annual meetings as vibrant and welcoming spaces of interdisciplinary knowledge production and social interaction. It would be a privilege to draw on my administrative and conference-planning experiences directing OSU’s Asian American and Sexuality Studies Programs to continue fostering such intellectual exchange and community building for current and new members, at the conference and beyond. The disproportionate impacts of the pandemic and the intersectional oppressions COVID-19 has exposed and exacerbated, coupled with the white supremacist and militarized violence that have surged in reaction to the movements for racial justice, call for ethical practices of solidarity that center the needs of the most vulnerable. In cooperation with the Association’s collective wisdom, passion, and creativity, I would commit to addressing those needs by working to dismantle academic hierarchies, cultivate collaborative projects, and support Asian Americanist interventions in public culture.