Ruth Marie Photography
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Bio
JP deGuzman is a comparative and relational race historian. He has published widely on Asian American community formation and histories of racialization, power, and place in Los Angeles, focusing on the San Fernando Valley region. Writing on the (inter)discipline of Asian American Studies, his work has explored its radical origins, historiography, pedagogy, and relationships with contingent academic labor. His publications appear in Amerasia Journal, Journal of Asian American Studies, Journal of Urban History, California History, Southern California Quarterly, The History Teacher, and various anthologies in ethnic, urban, and religious studies. An ordained Jodo Shinshu Buddhist priest, he has written for several Buddhist periodicals including Lion's Roar and The Wheel of Dharma. Dr. deGuzman is a member of the History and Social Sciences faculty at Windward School. He also teaches part-time in the Race and Indigeneity in the US Cluster and Asian American Studies Department at UCLA where he earned the university's Distinguished Teaching Award and the Laura Kinsey Outstanding Teaching Prize. He earned a Ph.D. in history and an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA, completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, and has also studied at the Institute of Buddhist Studies of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. He can be contacted at here. Research My book project, tentatively entitled A Touch of Danger: Southern California's San Fernando Valley and the Racial Politics of An American Dream, explores how communities of color claimed and contested that iconic post-war space. The rest of my publications focus on three major areas -- comparative race studies of Los Angeles, Asian American communities, and the (inter)discipline of Asian American Studies -- and cover topics as varied as the genesis of boba cafes, student activism for Asian American Studies, the evolution of Shin Buddhism in Los Angeles, and various flash points in San Fernando Valley history (from Cold War civil rights activism to the secession movement to the place-based politics of historical memory and preservation). Teaching Currently, I am a faculty member in the Department of History and Social Sciences at Windward School where I work closely with the junior/senior advisory program and the Asian, Pacific Islander, Desi American affinity groups. At UCLA, I am a lecturer in the Department of Asian American Studies and the Race and Indigeneity Cluster, and previously taught in the History, Chicanx Studies, and Honors departments. I have taught and mentored a diverse set middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in spaces that range from the research seminar to the 250+ person lecture, from the independent school (Windward, Pinecrest) to the large public university (UCLA, UCSB, CSU Long Beach). My pedagogy focuses on project-based learning and requires students to become engaged scholars adept at using historical analysis to understand themselves and the worlds around them. In addition to executing traditional research papers, my undergraduate students have researched and built a digital archive of a nearly century-old local Buddhist temple, created an ongoing catalogue of interethnic spaces in Los Angeles on Instagram, and, several successive Asian American history “pop-up” museums in the rotunda of the UCLA Powell Library, which I wrote about in the peer reviewed pedagogy journal, The History Teacher (the companion digital archive is available here). In collaboration with other campus faculty and the school makerspace, my middle and high school students have staged exhibits on the social, cultural, political, military, and gender history of the Civil War and the diasporas of refugee populations in Southern California. Community Beyond academia I helped found the Tuna Canyon Detention Station Coalition, advised the Los Angeles Office of Historic Resources, organized with the University Council-American Federation of Teachers, and have served on the board of a local civil rights organization for almost 20 years. I have been interviewed on various NPR affiliates and have given presentations on Los Angeles history and Ethnic Studies to non-academic audiences including the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, Google Asia Pacific, grassroots organizations such as Vigilant Love, and local community centers. As a member of the board of the Society of History Education, I regularly review manuscripts for the journal, The History Teacher, a leading publication for history pedagogy at the K-university levels. I'm also active in different Buddhist communities and write and speak about Buddhism in America. More information about his part of my life is available here. DISCLAIMER: All views expressed on this website are entirely my own and do not represent the opinions of any organization or institution with which I have been affiliated in the past or present.
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