Monica M. Trieu

Promoted to Full Professor
School of Interdisciplinary Studies
mtrieu@purdue.edu

Monica M. Trieu received her PhD in Sociology, with an emphasis in Asian American Studies, from the University of California, Irvine. Her research primarily focuses on children of the post-1960s Asian immigrants and political refugees—the 1.5 and second-generation Asian Americans. Her work explores the intersection of race, ethnicity, immigration, and identity. Specifically, she empirically examines the contextual factors (e.g., space, region, language, transnational behaviors, education) that influence identity formation and adaptation. Her interdisciplinary work is situated within, and contributes to, multiple disciplines. This includes the fields of Asian American studies, sociology, racial and ethnic studies, international migration studies, transnational studies, and refugee studies. She has written on themes including internalized racism, race and space, (differential) racialization, family obligation, language and identity, transnational ties, and the role of Asian American Studies.

She is the author of Fighting Invisibility: Asian Americans in the Midwest (Rutgers University Press, 2023) and Identity Construction among Chinese-Vietnamese Americans: Being, Becoming, and Belonging (LFB, 2009). Her work has also appeared in Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Journal of Asian American Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Family Issues, Ethnicities and Race Ethnicity and Education.

Currently, she is working on research project examining the relationship between Asian Americans, the U.S. National Parks and the great outdoors.