May 6, 2016
Janelle Wong, Professor of American Studies and Director of Asian American Studies at the University of Maryland, will discuss the political attitudes and behavior of Asian Americans. She will use survey data and other evidence to explore Asian American political participation and voting patterns. She will also point out surprising trends in Asian American public opinion toward issues ranging from health care to affirmative action. Wong discusses Asian Americans' growing political power and their likely role in the upcoming 2016 Presidential Election.
Janelle Wong is Director of the Asian American Studies Program and Resource Center. She received her PhD from the Department of Political Science at Yale University. She is also Professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the University of Maryland in 2012, she was at the University of Southern California in the Departments of Political Science and American Studies and Ethnicity. She also served as Executive Director of the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University (2011-12). Wong is author of Democracy’s Promise: Immigrants and American Civic Institutions (2006, University of Michigan Press) and co-author of two books on Asian American politics. The most recent is Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and their Political Identities (2011, Russell Sage Foundation), based on the first nationally representative survey of Asian Americans’ political attitudes and behavior. This groundbreaking study of Asian Americans was conducted in eight different languages with six different Asian national origin groups. Wong has received research funding from the Russell Sage Foundation, Irvine Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation. She was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, in 2006-2007.
Wong’s research is on race, immigration, and political mobilization.