Our Faculty

Cynthia Marasigan

Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director

Department of Asian and Asian American Studies

Background

Cynthia Marasigan is a historian whose research and teaching interests include United States history from the mid-19th century to the present, with particular engagement in U.S. Empire studies, comparative and relational studies of race, U.S.-Philippine and Filipino American history, and Afro-Asian histories. 

Her current book manuscript, Empire鈥檚 Color Lines: How African American Soldiers and Filipino Revolutionaries Transformed Amigo Warfare (forthcoming, Duke University Press), explores intersections of U.S. imperialism, Jim Crow, and colonial resistance by analyzing a range of interactions between Black soldiers and Filipinos during the Philippine-American War and its aftermath.

Select Publications

  • 鈥淭he Persistence of War through Migration,鈥 in Filipinx American Studies: Reckoning, Reclamation, Transformation, eds. Rick Bonus and Antonio T. Tiongson, Jr. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2022), 67-82.
  • 鈥淩ace, Performance, and Colonial Governance: The Philippine Constabulary Band Plays the St. Louis World鈥檚 Fair.鈥 Journal of Asian and Asian American Studies 22.3 (October 2019): 349-385.


Education

  • PhD, History, University of Michigan
  • MA, Historical Studies and Political Science, New School for Social Research
  • BA, History, 绿帽社

Research Interests

  • U.S. empire
  • Comparative and relational studies of race
  • Philippine and Filipino American history
  • Afro-Asian histories

Teaching Interests

  • Asian American history
  • U.S. empire, race and citizenship
  • Philippine and Filipino American history
  • Afro-Asian histories
  • Mixed race families

Awards

  • Ford Foundation Postdoctoral and Dissertation Fellowships
  • Chancellor鈥檚 Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • J. William Fulbright Grant, Philippines
  • George C. Marshall/Baruch Fellowship
  • Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship