Professor Chong, you have been teaching at the University since 2004. What brought you to Charlottesville?\nWhen Ed Ayers, whose degree is in American Studies from Harvard, was Dean of Arts & Sciences, he had a real commitment to interdisciplinary studies and oversaw a job search in American Studies ... I was one of these hires and I was placed in the English Department. And that really jumpstarted the American Studies program and gave birth to [the Asian Pacific American Studies program]. Pensri Ho and I started the APAS minor out of American Studies after we were hired together in 2004, and we got the minor approved in 2005.
What professional goals have you set for yourself?\nI enjoy breaking the stereotype that Asian professors can only teach in the math and sciences. When people learn that I am an English professor, they try to watch their language around me, and I think that's amusing because I am not a native English speaker and am usually not paying attention to the kind of language they are using. So I don't fit the stereotype of what people think an English professor should be and I that's continually a goal I try to uphold ... I just finished a book on the Vietnam War and am starting another one on World War II. Those books are meant to change the way people think about racial politics in relation to film and popular culture, so that's also a goal for me.
How have your past experiences influenced the way your approach to teaching?\nI went to a liberal arts college that was very intellectually intense and very small - about 1,200 [students] total. Professors there treated students really seriously, and I'm still friends with many of them, so I always have that in mind when trying to create a classroom atmosphere here. Intense, intellectual and intimate ... I came here [to America] really young so I feel like both an insider and outsider to American culture. Growing up, I never would have thought I would study Asian-Americans because no one I knew did, and I would have wanted to be seen as assimilated. Studying your people makes you seem like you're not part of the mainstream, so I understand the social phenomena I teach about. But as I grew older, I realized you also can't ignore things like gender and race. I was a feminist before I became a race scholar, and it took me a lot longer to get into Asian American studies. Even now, some of the topics I study can be too personal, which hampers your ability to be critical, so I am always trying to balance that.
What have you enjoyed most about your experience so far?\nThe students have been really great. I've become really involved in student life through APAS and APA programs. I've attended culture shows and political speakers and visited their homes. Every year we go to D.C. to attend the Asian Pacific American Film Festival - which has been a great atmosphere for learning and just being a person because I'm surrounded by friendly people ... Also, I enjoy spending time with my partner Micheal Puri who teaches in the music department. One thing I don't do with my spare time is watch movies because it feels like work.
How do you spend your free time?\nWell, I have a minor addiction to Facebook - even made this interview through wall posting. I spend a lot of time with my friends, a lot of other young professors. I sing in a lot of choirs and recently joined a choir called the VA Consort. I love karaoke. When I go to conferences, I gather my colleagues and friends together and drag them out to do karaoke. I also like to cook.
If you could attend any concert, whose would it be?\nWell, I regret not going to a Madonna or a Prince concert. I'm a child of the '80s, so those two are some of my favorite artists. I hear their concerts are spectacles. When I go to a concert, I want to see a show, not just a musical number and especially in the '90s, they gave shows ... I did just go to a concert that I've wanted to go to - Immortal Technique, who is an indie rapper. One of my former students at Berkeley gave me his album after reading Frantz Fanon [a Caribbean post-colonial theorist] with me because he said Fanon reminded him of Immortal Technique.
I hear you like to cook for your students, which is something not a lot of professors do. Why do you do it?\nI went to small liberal arts college called Swarthmore, and there, the professors all have their students over for dinner at the end of the year. Some professors even teach their classes out of their homes. I loved my professors, which is probably why I try to recreate that experience, even though U.Va. is a really big school.
What are your plans for the future here at the University and elsewhere? \nI'm itching to buy a house. I have never owned a house. When you go to graduate school for a Ph.D., you stay in kind of an infantile state for a long time - everyone else is starting their careers and you're still in training. After that, if you're lucky and become a professor, you're starting out in your 30s while others have been at it for years.
In high school, did you know what you wanted to be a professor? If so, did you know you wanted to teach Pan-American Studies?\nNo, I didn't. [Laughs.] I actually wanted to be an actress or poet.
If your friends could describe you in three words, what words do you think they would use? \nHyper, um, hyper, hyper, hyper. Also friendly and hungry all the time.
-compiled by Rasheda Nipu
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