Sony Coráñez Bolton

Candidate statement

Sony Coráñez Bolton is assistant professor of Spanish and Latinx and Latin American Studies at Amherst College where he teaches courses on Asian American studies, Latinx studies, and queer studies. He received his PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where he focused on the intersection of postcolonial studies and US cultural studies of the Philippines prioritizing Spanish language materials from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His first book, Crip Colony: Mestizaje, US Imperialism, and the Queer Politics of Disability in the Philippines (Duke 2023), brings queer of color critique together with crip/disability studies to analyze the ways that heternormative mestizo Filipino authors offered a model and path for assimilation into the US empire. This project attempts to extend studies of disability into more postcolonial vistas. It also demonstrates the ways that Filipinx American studies has always been a profound mode of disability analysis in its engagements with US imperial histories and culture. As the New England/Central and Eastern Canada Representative of the Association for Asian American Studies, he hopes to integrate disability studies and crip theory more meaningfully into the various disciplines that compose Asian American studies as a field. Additionally, he is keen on supporting scholars on the east coast to demonstrate that the New England and central/eastern Canada regions are a notable and indispensable hub for Asian American studies. He is grateful to be considered for this important role.