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Kong Pha - Resized
Americanist Forum

Americanist Dinner Forum with Dr. Kong Pha - Sexuality, Belonging and Race Among Asian Americans in the Midwest

All are invited for dinner and conversation with Dr. Kong Pha on Monday, April 13th!
Do Asian Americans belong to the Midwest? What are their unique experiences and politics of life here? 
Specifically, what are the unique experiences of Hmong Americans in the state of Minnesota? This forum will celebrate Dr. Kong Pheng Pha’s 2025 book Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality to highlight how Hmong American activism has been key to restructuring racial, gender, and sexual formations in the Midwest. Engaging questions of race, citizenship, belonging, and resistance, the discussion also positions Minnesota as a key regional, national, and global site of political struggle shaped by Hmong American movements for justice.
 
Join us for Dr. Kong Pheng Pha’s talk and an invigorating conversation with Dr. Rene Esparza from Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at WashU and the author of another 2025 sensational book situated in the Midwest, From Vice to Nice: Race, Sex and the Gentrification of AIDS.
 

Please use the rsvp link is below.

Kong Pheng Pha is assistant professor of gender and women’s studies and Asian American studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research, public scholarship, and creative activity focus on Hmong history and politics; war and U.S. empire; critical refugee studies; Asian American communities in the Midwest; Asian American education; and LGBTQ social movements in the U.S. His book Queering the Hmong Diaspora: Racial Subjectivity and the Myth of Hyperheterosexuality (University of Washington Press, 2025) analyzes Hmong racial subject formation and cultural transformations against the backdrop of U.S. sexual and queer liberalism. His research has been published in the Hmong Studies Journal, Minnesota History, Amerasia Journal, Journal of Asian American Studies, American Quarterly, American Studies, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, AGITATE!, Race Ethnicity and Education, Journal of Transnational American Studies, and Equity and Excellence in Education. His public scholarship has been published in Aperture Magazine, Leader-Telegram, Reappropriate, Twin Cities Daily Planet, and Hmong Today. His current projects include a book of personal narrative nonfiction essays about Hmong’s place in a revolutionary America, and a book on the visuality of invisibility, secrecy, and statelessness.  

RSVP