Anna Nguyen
Visiting Assistant Professor of History
Education
Ph.D. University of Washington
M.A. University of Washington
B.A. University of Washington
Areas of Expertise
Asian American History
20th Century U.S. History
Critical Refugee Studies
Background
I grew up in Portland, Oregon, before moving to Seattle to pursue my bachelor's degree in history and political science at the University of Washington. I joined the UW History Department in 2016 as a graduate student and finished my PhD in 2023.
In my free time, I like reading science fiction and fantasy novels, watching horror movies, and going to museums. My project explores the varied priorities of Vietnamese refugee nationalists in the United States from the 1940s to 1990s. For Vietnamese in the United States, being a refugee is more than just a legal classification. Rather, the refugee is a racial formation that is central to the US understanding of non-communist Vietnamese as helpless and grateful subjects of the US empire.
My work argues that US-based Vietnamese nationalists across the political spectrum were aware of this dynamic and sought to exploit their status as refugees to advance their own political agendas, while simultaneously contesting established narratives of race, war, and empire in both the United States and Vietnam.
