Jennifer Ho: ‘Fighting Anti-Asian Racism’

Jennifer Ho—professor of ethnic studies and director of the Center for the Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder—will deliver a Presidential Colloquium on fighting anti-Asian racism at 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 5.

The virtual event, titled “Not Your Model Minority: Fighting Anti-Asian Racism and Yellow Peril Rhetoric in COVID Times,” is open to the public at no charge, and no tickets are required. Members of the campus community are invited to participate via Zoom; members of the general public may join via a livestream on Smith’s Facebook page.

About Jennifer Ho

The daughter of a refugee father from China and an immigrant mother from Jamaica, Jennifer Ho is a professor in the department of ethnic studies and the director of the Center for Humanities and the Arts at the University of Colorado Boulder. Ho received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her doctorate in English from Boston University. From 2014 to 2019, she had a faculty appointment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she taught courses in Asian American literature, contemporary multi-ethnic American literature, critical race studies and intersectionality.

Ho is the author of three books: “Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels,” “Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture,” which won the 2016 South Atlantic Modern Languages Association award for best monograph, and “Understanding Gish Jen.” She is co-editor of a collection of essays on race and narratology, “Race, Ethnicity, and Narrative in the United States,” and of an upcoming series of teaching essays on Asian American literature, “Teaching Approaches to Asian American Literature.”

Ho has published in journals such as “Modern Fiction Studies,” “Journal for Asian American Studies,” “Amerasia Journal” and “The Global South.” She has also presented at conferences such as the International Society for the Study of Narrative, American Studies Association, Modern Language Association, American Literature Association and the Association of Asian American Studies, where she was elected president effective April 2020. Two of her current book projects are a breast cancer memoir and a family autobiography that will consider Asian Americans in the global south through the narrative of her maternal family’s immigration from Hong Kong to Jamaica to North America.

In addition to her academic work, Ho is active in community engagement around issues of race and intersectionality, leading workshops on anti-racism and how to talk about race in our current political climate.

About Smith’s Presidential Colloquium Series

The Presidential Colloquium regularly features influential thought leaders in a wide range of fields—from poets and writers to economists and policy experts—to share their expertise, offer insights and inspire discourse on key social, political and global topics that call for our attention. Lectures are free and open to the public.