Research & Writing

Peer-Reviewed Articles

“Racist Attachments: Dakko-chan, Black Kitsch, and Kawaii Culture”
positions: asia critique, vol. 30, no. 1, February 2022 (pdf)

“Imperial Innocence: The Kawaii Afterlife of Little Black Sambo”
Victorian Studies, vol. 62, no. 4, Summer 2020 (pdf)

“Yellow Peril, Oriental Plaything: Asian Exclusion and the 1927 U.S.-Japan Doll Exchange”
Journal of Asian American Studies, vol. 23, no. 1, February 2020 (pdf)

Public Writing

“The Mixed-Race Fantasy Behind Kawaii Aesthetics”
Catapult, January 17, 2023

“Are You Half?”
Avidly | Los Angeles Review of Books, August 23, 2022

“The Healing Power of Virtual Cuteness”
Public Books, March 17, 2022

“Refusing Perfection: Toward an Eating Disorder Politics for Asian American Women”
Ms. Magazine, March 16, 2022

“The Billiken Doll’s Racist History”
The Strong National Museum of Play Blog, February 17, 2022

“The Soybean Years”
The Margins | Asian American Writers’ Workshop, August 21, 2019

“Believing in Fairies: Marie Kondo and Our Oriental Attachments”
Avidly | Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2, 2019

Virtual Presentations

“Kawaii: The Emergence and Evolution of Cuteness in Japanese Girls’ Culture”
Japan Foundation, New York, June 27, 2022

“Before Hello Kitty: Asian Cuteness in the American Imagination”
Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University, April 4, 2022