Loubna Qutami is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Qutami is a former President’s Postdoctoral Fellow from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2018-2020) and received her PhD from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside (2018). Qutami’s research examines transnational Palestinian youth movements after the 1993 Oslo Accords through the 2011 Arab Uprisings. Her work is based on scholar-activist ethnographic research methods. Qutami’s broader scholarly interests include Palestine, critical refugee studies, the racialization of Arab/Muslim communities in the U.S., settler-colonialism, youth movements, transnationalism and indigenous and Third World Feminism.

Cindy C. Sangalang, PhD, MSW is an assistant professor of Asian American Studies and Social Welfare at UCLA. Drawing on theory and knowledge across disciplines, her program of research examines how race, migration, and culture intersect to shape health and well-being in immigrant and refugee communities, with a focus on Southeast Asian youth and their families. A primary concern involves understanding developmental and health-related effects of racism and war- and migration-related traumas. These scholarly commitments are fueled by a broader goal of informing interventions that promote social justice and health equity.

Professor Sangalang has been a principal investigator on research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). She earned her Ph.D. and Masters in Social Welfare from UCLA and trained as a postdoctoral fellow in health disparities research at Arizona State University. Previously she was on the faculty in Social Work at Arizona State University and California State University, Los Angeles.

Lee Ann S. Wang is Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and Social Welfare at the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her current work is an ethnographic study of immigration law and enforcement at the site of gender and sexual violence, focusing on the work of service providers and legal advocates with Asian immigrant women and their communities.  She examines how the law writes and maintains the meaning of protection under the Violence Against Women Act’s immigration provisions, the enlistment of the non-citizen legal subject towards policing, accumulative cooperation, and the visa petition’s role in neoliberal punishment practices.  At its core, the work strives to take up the already gendered and racialized task of writing about people and life, without re-inscribing victimhood in legal evidence and the violences of legal archive.  She has taught courses on Asian Americans and law, gender and sexuality studies, feminist theory, immigration law and public policy, gender violence and policing, social welfare policy, and legal intimacies.  Dr. Wang is a former UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley School of Law and held faculty appointments in Law and Public Policy, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington Bothell and visiting positions at the University of Hawai‘i Mānoa.

Courses Taught

• Foundations of  Social Welfare Policy
• Gender Violence, Policing, and the Law
• Asian Americans and the Law
• Critical Approaches to Emerging Issues in Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities 

News

• Wang Argues Against Prison-to-ICE Pipeline
• ‘Summer of Soul’ – A Q&A on Black Music as History
• Scholars Examine Interesting Global and Local Forces Impacting Anti-Asian Violence
• What to Keep in Mind as you Talk About the  Atlanta Spa Shootings 
• Crossings, Conversations and Convictions: A Look at Generational Grassroots Movements

Professor Umemoto’s research centers on issues of democracy and social justice in multicultural societies with a focus on US cities. She also examines and pursues planning processes that include a diverse array of voices, acknowledges different ways of knowing, and allows for meaningful deliberations. She is equally concerned about the structural, procedural and relational obstacles to attaining a just and democratic society. Her research and practice thus takes a broad view of planning in the context of social inclusion, participatory democracy and political transformation.

Her recent work has focused on the problem of overrepresentation of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islander youth in the Hawai‘i juvenile justice system. Professor Umemoto’s co-authored award-winning book entitled, Jacked up and unjust: Pacific Islander teens confront violent legacies, features youths’ narratives in an ethnographic study of youth violence in Hawai’i examined within the historic role of colonization and racial domination in the US. It critiques the punitive turn in juvenile justice and disciplinary policies and offers alternative approaches that focus on healing and restorative practices. She has also worked on juvenile justice reform initiatives as a researcher, evaluator, planner, and advocate.

Prof. Umemoto’s current work focuses on the ways that planning can be seen and practiced as a transformative tool to facilitate collaborative and inclusive processes of social change. She is also conducting research on the history of urban renewal in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo.

Editorial Boards

• Editorial Board, Journal of the American Planning Association, 2010-present
• Editorial Board, Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2010-present
• Editorial Advisor, Journal of Indigenous Social Development, 2010-present
• Editorial Board, Planning Theory, 2005-present
• Editorial Board, AAPI Nexus: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders Policy, Practice and Community, 2002-present

Valerie J. Matsumoto is a Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Asian American Studies. In July 2017 she was appointed to the George and Sakaye Aratani Endowed Chair on the Japanese American Incarceration, Redress, and Community.