Karen Siu

Candidate statement

I am a third-year English PhD Student at Rice University and my recent work examines Diasporic Vietnamese graphic memoirs through the lens of ecocriticism. The vibrant, collaborative community that AAAS fosters is so important to me as a student at a university with limited opportunities for scholars of color and Asian Americanists. Seeing this lack at my institution, I co-founded the Rice Asian Diasporic and Asian American Research Collective, carving out space on a campus with little to no history of Asian American Studies. As Student Representative, I would bring my perspective as an Asian Americanist working in a region with one of the largest Asian diasporic/Asian American concentrations outside of the west coast, but nonetheless a region underrepresented in AAAS. Working for the Houston Asian American Archive and Rice Center for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, I’ve organized programming that addresses the needs of undergraduate and graduate students. Some events include co-moderating a discussion between Cathy Park Hong and faculty, students, and community members amid rising anti-Asian racism as well as organizing a panel on diverse careers in the humanities. I'm also currently serving on the Advisory Board for the Circle for Asian American Literary Studies. Given today’s troubling political landscape, I believe that we must continue furthering AAAS goals by advocating for collective solidarity and care across different regions both within the academy and beyond.