James Zarsadiaz

James Zarsadiaz is Associate Professor of History and serves as Director of the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program. His research and teaching interests include urban and suburban studies, California and the U.S. West, Asian American history, and the twentieth-century United States. He received a PhD and an MA in History from Northwestern University, and a BA in American Studies and Political Science from George Washington University. Prof. Zarsadiaz was a fellow at both the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and Asian Pacific American Center.

His first research article, "Design Assimilation in Suburbia: Asian Americans, Built Landscapes, and Suburban Advantage in Los Angeles's San Gabriel Valley since 1970," (co-authored with Becky Nicolaides) was published in the Journal of Urban History (2015). The article won the Urban History Association's Arnold Hirsch Award and the Vernacular Architecture Forum's Catherine W. Bishir Prize. Prof. Zarsadiaz's most recent article, "Raising Hell in the Heartland: Filipino Chicago and the Anti-Martial Law Movement, 1972- 1986," was published in American Studies (2017) and received an Honorable Mention from the Filipino Section of the Association for Asian American Studies. He has also published work in Amerasia Journal, Journal of Asian American Studies, and Journal of Social History.

James has written articles and op-eds for City Lab, National Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post. He has done live interviews on BBC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, and Southern California Public Radio regarding current affairs and his research.

Prof. Zarsadiaz is currently working on a book about Asian American settlement and suburban development in post-World War II Los Angeles.