Josen Masangkay Diaz

Candidate statement

My name is Josen Masangkay Diaz, and I am Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and Affiliated Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of San Diego. My research and teaching focus on subjectivity, colonialism, liberalism, and authoritarianism. My book, Postcolonial Configurations: Dictatorship, the Racial Cold War, and Filipino America (Duke University Press, 2023), analyzes the formation of Filipino America within Philippine-U.S. cold war politics. My current project theorizes Filipinx labor as a modality for studying political crises across locations and historical periods. I am also a core member of Asian Solidarity Collective, a grassroots organization in San Diego that builds political education programs toward solidarity movements. I am a longtime member of the association with deep ties to Southern California. If elected as regional representative, I aim to address the diverse interests and concerns of the region, with specific attention to those of graduate students, contingent workers, and community members, to the membership and to the board. I remain committed to an Asian American studies that is deliberate in its interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and politics of justice and possibility.