Mimi Thi Nguyen is Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Published in September 2012, her book The Gift of Freedom: War, Debt, and Other Refugee Passages, focuses on the promise of “giving” freedom concurrent and contingent with waging war and its afterlife (Duke University Press, 2012). She is also co-editor with Fiona I.B. Ngo and Mariam Lam of a Summer 2012 special issue of positions on Southeast Asian American Studies (20:3, Winter 2012).

Nguyen has made zines since 1991, including Slander (formerly known by other titles) and the compilation zine Race Riot. Race Riot is the first zine by and for punks of color to comprehensively address race and racisms in punk and riot grrrl. She is a former Punk Planet columnist and Maximumrocknroll volunteer; she is also a frequent collaborator with Daniela Capistrano for the POC Zine Project. From 24 September - 7 October 2012, she put on her punk vest and joined the POC Zine Project/Race Riot! Tour across the East Coast and Midwest, with authors and artists Osa Atoe, Mariam Bastani, Daniela Capistrano, Cristy Road, and Anna Vo speaking and reading from their zines and graphic novels about subterranean histories of race, gender, and sexuality. For recaps and photos from the tour (or more information about the tour in general), start here.

This site is still being updated with academic works and zines.