Dr Dana Nakano

I came to academia with a passion for the production and sharing of knowledge. In part, this passion stems from my own educational experiences where I often found my own history and lived experiences absent from the textbooks and knowledge I was provided in from K-12 through college. As a fourth generation Japanese American from Orange County, I pursued graduate study in ethnic studies and sociology to provide a greater scholarly visibility for my community.

In all my courses—whether core courses in sociological theory and method or topical courses in race, gender, and immigration—my central goal is to give my students a voice and a vocabulary to tell their own story and to be critical participants in the world around them. In developing their own voices, I also ask students to be mindful of others who may not have a voice. I ask them to unpack their “invisible knapsack” of privilege and question hegemonic structures and taken for granted assumptions as they inspect social issues.

My research interests focus on the sociologies of international migration, race/ethnicity, and politics. In particular, I am interested in the continuing role of race in internal and external boundary making as well as developing an affective understanding of citizenship. While my work tends to focus on Asian American communities, I have a broad interest in racial and ethnic dynamics across groups and leverage an intersectional perspective to incorporate class, gender, and sexuality into my work.