Hi Folks,

I guess it is time for a little self-introduction. Malcolm Lawrence, Founder/CEO & Editor-In-Chief of towerofbabel.com noticed that I had joined his Tower of Babel group on InterNations.com so he invited me to blog here.

I am very new to blogging–my only experience being a travel blog I’ve been keeping for about 3 weeks on facebook, mostly for my family and friends. However, I write a lot, mostly for public consumption through book chapters and journal articles (in my waking life I am an academic).

My writing often focuses on Asian American literature (the subject of my dissertation), art, culture, and community activism around identity politics. I have a particular fondness for poetry–particularly Asian American poetry–which requires often layers of references. I’ve recently been writing and lecturing a lot about the use of the Native Hawaiian word, “Hapa,” by non-Native Hawaiian Asian Americans. I’m also working on a book about mixed race Asian American artists (think Isamu Noguchi) with Laura Kina, herself a mixed Asian (Okinawan) artist. I also write about science fiction and mixed race (I have a chapter in a book on Star Trek, “The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film, and Culture,” which is all about Spock as a mixed race character and Seven of Nine as a transracial adoptee). And I love ethnic vampire literature, feminist and racially conscious science-fiction/speculative fiction (this all comes together for me in the poetry of Bryan Thao Worra, a Lao transracial adoptee speculative poet).

Recently, I have co-founded the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association, and I am writing about what critical mixed race studies is about–it is an emerging field within Ethnic Studies.

Personally, I am a mixed Asian American (Chinese, Greek, Swedish, English, Scottish, German, Pennsylvania Dutch), born in Australia, raised in San Francisco (and sent to Japanese Bilingual/Bi-cultural school for a few years), tenured at San Francisco State University in Asian American Studies, and at this very moment taking my first vacation in years and spending 5 weeks living with my best friend at her home in Brussels (after having just gotten tenure and having recently, amicably divorced).

And I just turned 39 on the recent summer solstice.

best,

Wei Ming Dariotis