Mimi Thi Nguyen

Mimi Thi Nguyen
BornThanh-Huong Thi Nguyen
(1974-06-22) June 22, 1974 (age 50)
Saigon, South Vietnam
OccupationProfessor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Asian American Studies
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Notable worksEvolution of a Race Riot zine
Website
mimithinguyen.com

Mimi Thi Nguyen (née Thanh-Huong Thi Nguyen; born in 1974) is a Vietnamese-born American scholar,[1] punk[2] and zine author.[3]

Biography

Born in 1974 in Saigon (now called Ho Chi Minh City) to Hiep and Lien Nguyen, Nguyen earned a bachelor's degree in Women's Studies and a doctorate in Ethnic Studies from University of California, Berkeley. Her master's degree was in American Studies from New York University.[4] She grew up in Minnesota and relocated to San Diego, California, where she was drawn to the D.I.Y. punk scene.[5]

Appointed in Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies, Nguyen earned tenure in 2012 at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.[6] She is a frequent conference keynote speaker or invited panelist,[7] and received the Outstanding Book Award in Cultural Studies from the Association of Asian American Studies, 2014[8] for her first single-author monograph, The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt and Other Refugee Passages.

Nguyen is possibly best known for her compilation zine Evolution of a Race Riot first published in 1997 with a second issue in 2002,[9] in which she and contributors of color challenged racism in the punk scene.[10][11] She also publishes the zine Slander and is a former Punk Planet columnist and Maximumrocknroll contributor. In June 2013, Sarah McCarry's Guillotine ("a series of erratically published chapbooks focused on revolutionary non-fiction") released PUNK, a conversation between Nguyen and Golnar Nikpour, which later informed a 2016 exhibition at the Arnolfini called "Moving Targets."[12]

Nguyen also cofounded a fashion blog with Minh-Ha T. Pham that discusses the politics, history, and aesthetics of beauty and fashion.[13]

Riot Grrrl

Nguyen lists the Riot Grrrl movement as one that is important and yet problematic. In her essay "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival", Nguyen discusses the work the Riot Grrrl movement has done in calling attention to how a woman's personal experiences with sexual abuse, heteronormativity, and intimacy with other women are tied up with the political and social. Collectivity among women being one of Riot Grrrl's goals, Nguyen addresses race as an obstacle to that collectivity, highlighting the marginalization of women of color.[14]

Evolution of a Race Riot zine

Nguyen created Evolution of a Race Riot as a compilation zine based in North America. Nguyen originally put out the first flier for zine submissions in August 1995 and the first issue was published in 1997. The entire zine is written by people of color mostly in the punk and Riot Grrrl scene.[15] According to Nguyen in her introduction to the first issue of the zine, most of the submissions are written by mixed race or Asian-American people of color.

Selected works

Books

  • Alien Encounters: Popular Culture in Asian America, edited with Thuy Linh Nguyen Tu[16]
  • The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages[17]

Zines

  • Aim Your Dick[18]
  • Evolution of a Race Riot,[19] editor
  • Guillotine Series #4: Punk,[20] written with Golnar Nikpour
  • Pander Mafia,[21] editor
  • Race Riot,[22] editor
  • Race Riot Project Directory,[23] editor
  • Slander[24]
  • Slant[25]
  • Sometimes Buddhist Keanu: A Coloring Book[26]

References

  1. ^ "Mimi Thi Nguyen". University of Illinois. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  2. ^ "about thread & circuits". 2009-07-27. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  3. ^ "Mimi Thi Nguyen". OCLC. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  4. ^ "MIMI THI NGUYEN, Associate Professor Gender & Women's Studies, Asian American Studies, Unit for Criticism". Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  5. ^ Vasquez, Tina (2013). "Revisiting the Riot: An Interview with Punk Veteran Mimi Thi Nguyen". Bitch Magazine. 59.
  6. ^ "MIMI THI NGUYEN, Associate Professor Gender & Women's Studies, Asian American Studies, Unit for Criticism". Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  7. ^ "MIMI THI NGUYEN, Associate Professor Gender & Women's Studies, Asian American Studies, Unit for Criticism". Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  8. ^ "GWS Professor Mimi Thi Nguyen awarded by the Association of Asian American Studies". University of Illinois. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  9. ^ Evolution of a race riot. OCLC. 1997. OCLC 56773549. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  10. ^ Freedman, Jenna (2009). "Grrrl Zines in the Library". Signs. 35 (1): 54. doi:10.1086/599266. ISSN 0097-9740. JSTOR 10.1086/599266. S2CID 145208834.
  11. ^ Molyneux, Nicole (2020). "Feminist Ways of Seeing: The Radical Potential of Zines". Jurnal Studi Pemuda. 9 (1): 66. doi:10.22146/studipemudaugm.55898.
  12. ^ "Arnolfini 2016 Exhibition "Moving Targets"". Retrieved 3 October 2016.
  13. ^ "Threadbared". wordpress. 2010-04-06. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  14. ^ Nguyen, Mimi Thi (12 December 2012). "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revial". Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. 22 (2–3): 173–196. doi:10.1080/0740770X.2012.721082. S2CID 144676874.
  15. ^ Nguyen, Mimi Thi (1997). Evolution of a Race Riot. Berkeley, California: editor.
  16. ^ "Alien Encounters: Popular Culture in Asian America". Duke University Press. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  17. ^ "The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages". Duke University Press. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  18. ^ Aim Your Dick. OCLC. 1992. OCLC 465280316. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  19. ^ Evolution of a Race Riot. OCLC. 1997. OCLC 56773549. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  20. ^ Guillotine Series #4: Punk. OCLC. OCLC 860826946. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  21. ^ Nguyen, Mimi Thi (2015). Pander Mafia: Twenty Year Anniversary Tribute Zine. OCLC 949812923.
  22. ^ Race Riot. OCLC. OCLC 506210798. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  23. ^ Race Riot Project Directory. OCLC. OCLC 57302481. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  24. ^ Nguyen, Mimi Thi (1999). "Slander". Slander. OCLC 857748402. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  25. ^ Slant. OCLC. OCLC 697075727. Retrieved 19 March 2014.
  26. ^ Nguyen, Mimi Thi (2020). Sometimes Buddhist Keanu: A Coloring Book. OCLC 1235306414.