Dr. Kim’s book, Refusing Death, examines race, class, gender, and citizenship with respect to the growing social phenomenon of marginalized and unauthorized immigrants – especially women and youth – making political inroads by way of grassroots activism, at times, sidestepping the need for formal political channels. By way of nearly four years of ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis of Asian American and Latin@ environmental justice activism in the industrial-port belt of Los Angeles, she finds that these mostly female immigrant activists view their work as much more than an effort to spare their children’s lungs from the grey exhaust plumes of cargo ships and oil refineries; they are also redefining notions of politics, community, and citizenship in the face of America’s nativist racism and its system of class injustice, defined by disproportionate pollution and neglected schools, surveillance/deportation, and political marginalization. By inventively dovetailing all of these dimensions, the women show that they are highly conscious of how environmental and educational harms are an assault on their bodies and emotions; hence, they center embodied and affective strategies to uniquely challenge the neoliberal state’s neglect and betrayal and, ultimately, to refuse death.
Short Bio: Nadia Kim is Professor of Asian and Asian American Studies (and, by courtesy, Sociology) at Loyola Marymount University. Her research focuses on US race and citizenship injustices concerning Korean/Asian Americans and South Koreans, race and nativist racism in Los Angeles (e.g., 1992 LA Unrest), immigrant women activists, environmental racism and classism, and comparative racialization of Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Black Americans. Throughout her work, Kim’s approach centers on (neo)imperialism, transnationality, and the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and citizenship. Kim is author of the multi-award-winning Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA (Stanford, 2008); of multi-award-winning Refusing Death: Immigrant Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice in LA (Stanford, 2021); and award-winning journal articles on race and assimilation and on racial attitudes. In part as a UCSB undergraduate, Kim has long organized on issues of immigrant rights, affirmative action, and environmental justice, some of which she has incorporated into her research. She and/or her work have also appeared (inter)nationally on National/Southern California Public Radio, Red Table Talk, Radio Korea, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Korea Times, NYLON Magazine, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Co-Sponsors: Environmental Justice Alliance, Office of Equal Opportunity & Discrimination Prevention, and Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
