Event

Imperial Unsettling: Indigenous and Immigrant Activism towards Collective Liberation

12-1pm

PSTC Seminar Room, Mencoff Hall 205

Kevin Escudero, Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies, Brown University

This talk will present preliminary findings from archival research, ethnographic fieldwork, and in-depth interviews conducted in Guåhan from 2020-21 examining Indigenous CHamoru and Filipinx immigrant communities' participation in the island's decolonization movement. Guåhan (Guam) is the southernmost island in the Mariana Island archipelago in the Western Pacific Ocean and home of the CHamoru people. It has been a U.S. territory since 1898.

Kevin Escudero is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnic Studies and an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Population Studies & Training Center at Brown University. His research focuses on comparative studies of race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity; U.S. empire and settler colonialism; immigration; social movements; and law. Escudero's book, Organizing While Undocumented (New York University Press, 2020) examines undocumented Asian, Latinx, and queer activists' strategic use of an intersectional movement identity to build coalitions with members of similarly situated groups. It received an Honorable Mention for the ASA Asia and Asian America Section's Asian America Book Award and was a finalist for the Society of Social Problems' C. Wright Mills Award. His current book manuscript, Imperial Unsettling, focuses on Indigenous CHamoru and Filipinx immigrant communities' participation in Guåhan's ongoing decolonization movement. During the 2020-21 academic year Escudero was a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellow at the Guam Museum where, in partnership with Guampedia and the Commission on Decolonization, he developed an exhibition on the history of decolonization activism during the American Period (1898-present).