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About Me
Erica Maria Cheung is a writer, scholar, and communications specialist based in Oakland, California, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people. She has a Ph.D. from the Culture & Theory program at the University of California, Irvine and she specializes in Gender & Sexuality Studies, Asian American Studies, and Visual Studies. Her professional experiences range from online journalism to non-profit communications and theatre criticism.
Her experiences as a transnational, China-Latina from the borderlands of El Paso, Texas/Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and Hong Kong have influenced her academic, professional, and creative motivations and concerns. Her work is politically motivated and she is dedicated to using her skills for social change, empowerment, and political education.
Erica is currently the Communications Director at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment/Education Fund (AAPI FORCE/EF), where she works to build political power for working-class Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders throughout California.
Research
Trained in feminist cultural studies, Erica’'s research is interdisciplinary and centers race and class in analyses of popular culture. Her dissertation, titled “The Umami Era: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Food,” studies and critiques how Asian Americans become visible and consumable through food culture in mainstream U.S. media.
Erica’s research will be published in two upcoming publications, Eating (More) Asian America (NYU Press) and Verge: Global Asias (UMN Press). She has presented her work at the American Studies Association and Asian American Studies Association national conferences and at the Asian American Pacific Islander History meeting, held at the The Huntington Library.
Writing
Erica studied journalism at New York University and interned at various publications, including W Magazine, NBC Universal, and The Huffington Post where she became a regular blogger. Her piece “Fat for an Asian, Flat for a Latina,” earned the attention of NPR’s Latino USA. This piece has also been assigned as suggested reading in an Asian American Studies course at NYU. Erica has gone on to work as a theatre critic, a writer-in-residence for UC Irvine’s School of Humanities, and a freelance writer for Latina magazine. She believes in the power of storytelling to create personal and community knowledge and hopes to write non-academic books one day.
COMMUNICATIONS
Erica is a communications specialist with over a decade’s worth of experience working in media. She has held positions in mass media organizations; international news sites; grassroots, state-wide, and national non-profit organizations; and at institutions of higher education. She is experienced in social media management, internal and external comms, print and video, website development, and public relations. Erica is dedicated to using her communications expertise to create tools for social change, political advocacy, and community organizing.
Teaching
Erica is trained in the Humanities Pedagogical Certificate Program, which emphasizes Humanities-centered education, inclusive course design, feminist pedagogy, and active learning. She has worked as a teaching assistant and lecturer for the departments of Asian American Studies and Gender & Sexuality Studies at UC Irvine. Her courses are social justice oriented and focus on intersectional feminist praxis, Ethnic Studies curricula, and coalitional politics. She has guest lectured at UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton, and Franklin & Marshall College.
CONSULTING
Erica worked as a media consultant for Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties and as a capacity-building and course development consultant for the Asian American Pacific Islander Health Forum. If you are interested in working with her, please fill out the “Contact Me” form below.