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Arleen de Vera

Assistant Professor
Ph.D., University of California at Los Angeles
History and Asian and Asian American Studies

Office: LT 604  
Phone: (607) 777-3336 E-mail: adevera@binghamton.edu

My research interests center on nationalism, colonialism, race/ethnicity, and gender. In my dissertation, I examined how an "imagined community" emerged among Filipino migrants in California during the early to mid-twentieth century. This imagined community was, however, fraught with tensions and conflicts in which elite nationalists, despite their appeal to universalistic notions of community, clashed with women, laborers, and others who rejected elite hierarchies of gender and class in favor of "popular" ideals of gender relations, power, and community. My research interests center on nationalism, colonialism, race/ethnicity, and gender. In my dissertation, I examined how an "imagined community" emerged among Filipino migrants in California during the early to mid-twentieth century. This imagined community was, however, fraught with tensions and conflicts in which elite nationalists, despite their appeal to universalistic notions of community, clashed with women, laborers, and others who rejected elite hierarchies of gender and class in favor of "popular" ideals of gender relations, power, and community.

Recent or current undergraduate courses:

  • Modern American Civilization: The United States Since 1865
  • Asian American History
  • Gender and Sexuality in American History
  • Gender and the Body
  • The United States and the Philippines
  • Empires and Diasporas: Modern Southeast Asia

Recent or current graduate courses:

  • History of the American West
  • Asian American Historiography
  • Social Construction: Theorizing Race, Gender, and Class in American History

Significant Publications

Book Chapters:

  • "Rizal Day Queen Contests, Filipino Nationalism, and Femininity," Chapter 4, in Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity and Ethnicity, Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou, editors (New York: Routledge, 2004), pp. 67-81.
  • "The United States Government Tries to Deport Filipino Labor Leaders," Chapter 10, in Major Problems in Asian American History, Lon Kurashige and Alice Yang Murray, editors (Boston: Houghton/Mifflin, 2003), pp. 345-350.
  • "The Tapia-Saiki Incident: Filipino and Japanese Conflict and Filipino Responses to the Anti-Filipino Exclusion Movement," in Over the Edge: Mapping Western Experiences, Valerie Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger, editors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 201-214.

Book Reviews:

  • Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke University Press, 2003) by Catherine Ceniza Choy, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall 2004 (online journal).
  • American Workers, Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919-1941 (University of California Press, 2003) by Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony, Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Summer 2004): 168-169.

Selected Fellowships/Honors

  • Binghamton University Dean's Research Semester Award
  • Asian and Asian American Studies Program Curriculum Development Grant
  • The Outstanding Teaching and Recognition Award, Sigma Beta Rho and Lambda Phi Epsilon, Binghamton University
  • Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
  • Fulbright Scholar, Philippines
  • The Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California Office of the President
  • Social Science Research Council
  • The Alexander Saxton History Essay Award

Affiliations

  • Organization of American Historians
  • Association for Asian American Studies
  • Filipino American National Historical Society