Education
B.A. California State Polytechnic University-Pomona
M.A. University of California-Los Angeles
Ph.D. University of California-Los Angeles
Courses
- SOC 101 (S) LEC Invitation to Sociology
- SOC 252/AAS 252/AMST 252 SEM Im/mobilities (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 313/AAS 312 SEM The 626 (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 335/GBST 335 SEM Nowheres (not offered 2026/27)
- SOC 352/STS 352/GBST 353 (F) SEM Paper Trails
- SOC 367 (F) TUT Rural Americas
- ANSO 402 (S) SEM Senior Seminar
Committees
- Library Committee
- Special Collections Committee
Contact Info
Hi there, I’m Phi Su (pronounced fee soo), and I use she/her pronouns.
I’m interested in people on the move and the understandings and convictions they carry with them across borders. My book, The Border Within: Vietnamese Migrants Transforming Ethnic Nationalism in Berlin (cover and trailer below), best captures my concern with how people rebuild their lives after war and border crossings.
I’ve done a bit of border crossing myself: born in Vietnam, I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley (“the 626”) and am a first-gen proud product of the California public education system. I’ve studied, taught, and lived in Berlin and Abu Dhabi. In Williamstown, I continue to find joy in singing, learning but never quite mastering languages, and describing food with perhaps a little too much zeal.
I look forward to conversations with folks about migration and mobility, inequality, intersectionality, and creative ways to hone a sociological imagination.