Linda Trinh Vo

Picture of Linda Trinh Vo
Professor, Department of Asian American Studies
School of Humanities
Affiliate Faculty, Department of Sociology
School of Social Sciences
Affiliate Faculty, Department of Urban Planning and Public Policy
School of Social Ecology
Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
Phone: (949) 232-0084
Email: volt@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
Humanities Gateway Building, Room 3307
Mail Code: 6900
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Asian American studies; racial and ethnic relations; immigrants and refugees; gender relations; and community and urban studies
Academic Distinctions
University of California, Irvine Chancellor's Fellow (2006-2009)
Appointments
University of California, Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Diversity. Affiliated with Asian American Studies Program/Ethnic Studies Department. Fall 1994-Summer 1996.

University of California Humanities Research Institute Fellowship. Minority Discourse III: “The Case of California: Processes of Diversity in Community.” University of California, Irvine. Fall 1993.
Research Abstract
Dr. Linda Trinh Vo is a Professor and former Chair of the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, San Diego and was a faculty member in the Sociology Department at Oberlin College and the Comparative Cultures Department at Washington State University. She received a UC Berkeley Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship (1994-1996) and was a UC Irvine Chancellor's Fellow (2006-2009). She was an Equity Advisor for the UC Irvine School of Humanities, working as a Faculty Assistant to the Dean to improve gender and ethnic diversity in the professoriate, focusing on equal opportunity and equity practices in hiring, mentoring, and retention. Dr. Vo is the author of a book, Mobilizing an Asian American Community (Temple University Press, 2004), about how and why Asian Americans strategically organized for social, cultural, political, and economic purposes. She also co-authored a book, Vietnamese in Orange County (Images of America series by Arcadia Publishing, 2015). She is the co-editor of four books: Contemporary Asian American Communities: Intersection and Divergences (2002); Asian American Women: The “Frontiers” Reader (2004); and Labor Versus Empire: Race, Gender, and Migration (2004); and Keywords for Asian American Studies (New York University Press, 2015). She also edited a special issue on “Vietnamese Americans: Diaspora and Dimensions” for Amerasia Journal and co-edited a special issue on “Mapping Comparative Studies of Racialization in the U.S.” for Ethnicities Journal and a special issue on "Asian American Women" for Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. She was a Series Co-Editor (2005-2016) and is now a Series Editor Emeritus for the Asian American Culture and History series published by Temple University Press, which includes over seventy books.

Dr. Vo has served on Program Committees for the Association for Asian American Studies, American Studies Association, Pacific Sociological Association, and National Women's Studies Association. She was President-Elect (2013-2014) and President (2014-2016) of the national Association for Asian American Studies. On campus, she is an Ambassador for the Southeast Asian Archive at UC Irvine's Langson Library, which collects and documents the experiences of Cambodian, Lao, and Vietnamese Americans; was an Advisor for the Vietnamese American Coalition (VAC) and the Asian Pacific Student Association (APSA); and is a founding member of the UCI Vietnamese American Community Ambassadors (VACA), an association of alumni and community leaders. She was Director of Vietnamese American Oral History Project at UC Irvine which collects, archives, digitizes, and disseminates the life stories of Vietnamese Americans in Southern California and was the Co-Curator with Tram Le of 2 art, history, and oral history exhibitions: Vietnamese Focus: Generations of Stories and VIET STORIES: Recollections & Regenerations. Dr. Vo was a Board Member of the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA); Project MotiVATe, a mentoring program for Vietnamese American teens; and Global Village Foundation. She received the 2016 Public Image Award from Asian Americans Advancing Justice and was Co-Chair of the Community Advisory Council for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-OC. She has helped to organize the annual VietFilmFest (formerly biennial Vietnamese International Film Festival - ViFF) and was also an Advisory Board Member for the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA); Diasporic Vietnamese Arts Network (DVAN); and Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF). She was a founding Board Member of the National Asian American Community Foundation (NAACF)(now Asian American Futures). She is an Advisory Board Member for VietRISE; a Steering Committee Member of the Task Force for the National Museum of Asian Pacific American History and Culture; and a member of the Community Advisory Committee for South Coast Repertory.

Dr. Vo received the 2010 Pedagogical Innovation: Civic Engagement Teaching Award from the UCI Division of Undergraduate Education and the 2008 Community Service Award from the UCI Community Outreach Partnership Center. She was selected as "Most Influential 2015" & “30 (Vietnamese Americans) to watch as 2005 future leaders” by the Orange County Register, “20 Women To Watch” in OC Metro Business Magazine in 2008, and as “25 to Watch” in Celebrating 25 Years: 1984-2009 Anniversary Issue of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education Magazine. Dr. Vo has been interviewed by numerous media, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, CNN, Politico, Vox, USAToday, NBC Asian America, Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Orange County Register, Voice of OC, Nguoi Viet Daily News, PBS, NPR, and Agence France-Presse.
Publications
SERIES EDITOR (2005-2016) & SERIES EDITOR EMERITUS (2016-present):
• Temple University Press. Asian American History and Culture series edited by Rick Bonus (University of Washington, Seattle), Cathy Schlund-Vials (University of Texas, Austin), and Shelley Wong (Oberlin College). Emeritus Editors Sucheng Chan (Emeritus, UC Santa Barbara & series founder), Michael Omi (Emeritus, UC Berkeley), David Palumbo-Liu (Stanford University), K. Scott Wong (Williams College), and Linda Trinh Vo (UC Irvine).

EDITORIAL BOARD:
Journal of Asian American Studies (JAAS) (Johns Hopkins University Press), 2005-2012
Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement (JSAAEA). National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese Americans (NAFEA). 2006-present
• Advisory Council,Asian American Literary Review (AALR), 2011-2015.

BOOKS

Schlund-Vials, Cathy, Linda Trinh Võ, and K. Scott Wong, editors, Keywords for Asian American Studies. New York: New York University Press, 2015.

Vo Dang, Thuy, Linda Trinh Võ, and Tram Le. Vietnamese in Orange County. Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Press, 2015.

Võ, Linda Trinh, Mobilizing an Asian American Community. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2004.
- 2004 Honorable Mention Book Award for Social Sciences, national Association for Asian American Studies.

Gonzalez, Gilbert, Raul Fernandez, Vivian Price, David Smith, and Linda Trinh Võ, editors, Labor Versus Empire: Race, Gender, and Migration. New York: Routledge Press, 2004.

Võ, Linda Trinh and Marian Sciachitano (with Susan Armitage, Patricia Hart, and Karen Weathermon), editors, Asian American Women: The “Frontiers” Reader. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

Võ, Linda Trinh and Rick Bonus, editors, Contemporary Asian American Communities: Intersections and Divergences. Philadelphia: PA: Temple University Press, 2002.

JOURNALS – GUEST EDITOR

Invited co-guest editors Linda Trinh Võ and Rodolfo D. Torres for “Mapping Comparative Studies of Racialization in the U.S,” a special issue for Ethnicities Journal [Sage Publications, United Kingdom] Number 4, Issue 3 (September 2004).

Invited guest editor Linda Trinh Võ for “Vietnamese Americans: Diaspora and Dimensions,” a special issue of Amerasia Journal, Volume 29, Number 1 (July 2003).

Invited co-guest editors Marian Sciachitano and Linda Trinh Võ. A special issue on Asian American women for Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 21, no. 1 & 2 (March 2000).

JOURNALS

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Racial Disruptions: Asian American Optics in a Provisional Democracy” in special issue “Common Grounds? American Democracy after Trump” with Guest Editors Cedric Essi, Heike Paul, and Boris Vormann. Amerikastudien / American Studies Journal (Germany), vol. 66, 1 (2021): 81-88.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Reflections on the Formation and Future of Asian American Studies” in Part 2: Special Issue on AAPIs – Creating the Future in an Uncertain World edited by Paul Ong, Elena Ong, S. Floyd Mori, Alycia Cheng & Melany De La Cruz-Viesca. AAPI Nexus Journal, Vol 14, No. 2 (Fall) 2016: 117-128.

Võ, Linda Trinh “Beyond Colorblind Universalism: Asians in a 'Post-Racial America.'"Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, (Oct 2010): 327-342.

Võ, Linda Trinh “Constructing a Vietnamese American Community: Economic and Political Transformation in Little Saigon, Orange County.”Special issue “How Do Asian Americans Create Places? Los Angeles & Beyond,” guest editor, KyeYoung Park, UCLA. Amerasia Journal, Vol 34, No 3 (2008): 84-109.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “‘Whose School District is This?’: Vietnamese Americans and Coalitional Politics in Orange County, California.” AAPI Nexus: Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders Policy, Practice and Community, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Summer/Fall) 2007: 1-32.

Võ, Linda Trinh and Mary Yu Danico, “The Formation of Post-Suburban Communities: Little Saigon and Koreatown, Orange County”. Special issue guest edited by Prema Kurien on “The Impact of Immigrants on American Institutions,” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. (Barmarick Publications, England). Vol. 24, Number 7/8, 2004: 15-45.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Telling Our Stories: The Asian American Comparative Collection.”Review essay in Journal of Asian American Studies 2: 1 (February 1999): 93-100.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Asian Immigrants, Asian Americans, and the Politics of Economic Mobilization in San Diego.”Amerasia Journal22: 2 (1996): 89-108.

BOOK CHAPTERS

Võ, Linda Trinh, “‘Defiant Daughters’: The Resilience and Resistance of 1.5-Generation Vietnamese American Women,” in Our Voices, Our Histories: Asian American and Pacific Islander Women, edited by Shirley Hune and Gail M. Nomura. New York University Press, 2020, 205-220.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Asian Immigrants and Refugees: Demographic Transformations in the United States from World War II to the Present” in Finding a Path Forward: Asian American Pacific Islander National Historic Landmarks Theme Study, ed. by Franklin Odo. Washington D.C.: National Park Services, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2018, 284-304.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Transnational Beauty Circuits: Asian American Women, Technology, and Circle Contact Lenses,” in Global Asian American Popular Cultures, edited by Shilpa Davé, Leilani Nishime, and Tasha Oren. New York: New York University Press, 2016, 304-320.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Navigating the Academic Terrain: The Racial and Gender Politics of Elusive Belonging” in Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia,, edited by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González, and Angela P. Harris. Boulder, CO: Utah State University Press, 2012, 93-112.

Võ, Linda Trinh, "Transformative Disjunctures in the Academy: Asian American Studies as Praxis," in Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy, edited by Brett C. Stockdill and Mary Yu Danico. Honolulu: HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 120-144.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Transforming a Community: Little Saigon, Orange County” in Asian America: Forming New Communities, Expanding Boundaries, edited by Huping Ling. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009, 87-103.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “What a Difference a Generation Makes: Negotiating Vietnamese American Womanhood in the Diaspora” in Le Vietnam au Feminin/Vietnam: Women’s Realities,, edited by Gisèle Bousquet and Nora Taylor. Paris: Les Indes Savantes Publisher, 2005, 323-336. This book has both French and English language essays.

Danico, Mary Yu and Linda Trinh Võ, “‘No Lattés Here’: Asian American Youth and the Cyber Café Obsession,” in Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity, edited by Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou. New York: Routledge Press , 2004, 177-190.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Managing Survival: Economic Realities for Vietnamese American Women” in Asian/Pacific Islander American Women: A Historical Anthology, edited by Shirley Hune and Gail Nomura. New York University Press , 2003, 237-252.
- Reprint: Võ, Linda Trinh, “Managing Survival: A Brief History of Vietnamese America Through a Gendered Perspective” in Charlie Don’t Surf: 4 Vietnamese American Artists. Published by Centre A, Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, 2005, pp. 14-27. For “Charlie Don’t Surf: Art, the Politics of Identity, and the Vietnam War” art exhibition. Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada. Exhibition: 9 April - 21 May 2005.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “A Community in Transition: Little Saigon” in The New Face of Asian Pacific America: Numbers, Diversity and Change in the 21st Century , edited by Eric Lai and Dennis Arguelles [pp.283]. Co-published by AsianWeek newspaper and UCLA Asian American Studies Center in with partnership with Organization for Chinese Americans (OCA) and the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (NCAPACD), 2003, 126-127.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “The Politics of Social Services for a ‘Model Minority’: The Union of Pan Asian Communities” in Asian and Latino Immigrants in a Restructuring Economy: The Metamorphosis of Southern California, edited by Marta López-Garza and David R. Diaz. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press , 2001, 241-272.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Asian American Women: Immigration, Labor Force Participation, and Activism” in Gender Mosaics: Social Perspectives, edited by Dana Vannoy. Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Press, 2000, 279-289.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “The Vietnamese American Experience: From Dispersion to the Development of Post-Refugee Communities” in Asian American Studies: A Reader, edited by Jean Yu-Wen Shen Wu and Min Song. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000, 290-305.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Performing Ethnography in Asian American Communities: Beyond the Insider-versus-Outsider Perspective” in Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America, edited by Martin F. Manalansan. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2000, 17-37.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Võ, Linda Trinh and Laureen Hom, Transforming Orange County: Assets and Needs of Asian Americans & Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders report. Orange County, CA: Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Orange County. 2018.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “A Coming of Age Story: Vietnamese American Political Participation” in National Asian Pacific American Political Almanac 2014-2015 (15th edition), edited by Don Nakanishi and James Lai. UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (2014): 27-30.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Documenting the Southeast Asian American Experience” in Oakland Museum of California magazine, Fall 2004: 12-13.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “Telling Our Stories: The Asian American Comparative Collection” in Asian Mode, American Sociological Association Section on Asia and Asian American Newsletter (November 1998): 5-6.

Võ, Linda Trinh, “The Chinese/Asian Thematic Historic District” in Asian Business Association News, San Diego, California. Volume 1, Issue 4 (April 1992).

OTHER PROJECTS

Director, Vietnamese American Oral History Project, UC Irvine, 2011-2020.

Co-Curators Linda Trinh Võ and Tram Le,VIET STORIES: Recollections & Regenerations, an art, history & oral history exhibition at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, CA. February 17-May 28, 2018.

Co-Curators Linda Trinh Võ and Tram Le, Vietnamese Focus: Generations of Stories, an art, history & oral history exhibition in partnership with Orange County Parks at the Historical Gallery at the Old Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana, CA (July 2015-February 2016) and Viewpoint Gallery at UC Irvine Student Center. March 4-31, 2016.

AAAS Liaison & Advisory Committee Member, ‘Invisible New Americans’: Refugees from Burma/Myanmar and Bhutan in the United States report by Chia Youyee Vang and Monica Mong Trieu with the Association for Asian American Studies and Asian Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, 2014.

Member, Academic Advisory Board, Orange County on the Cusp of Change report. UCI Community and Labor Project and the UCLA Labor Center, 2014.

Lead Faculty Advisor for “The Southeast Asian Archive Access Project,” to develop Documenting the Southeast Asian American Experience (SEAAdoc). Southeast Asian Archive, Department of Special Collections and Archives, UC Irvine Libraries. ($208,000) National Endowment for the Humanities grant to process and digitalize 4,000 document pages and 1,500 photos. 2003-2005.

Consultant for treatments and scripts, Crossing East Project - eight one-hour programs about Asian American immigration. National Public Radio. April 2005 – present. Aired May 2006.
Last updated
03/04/2024