Brand D. Nakashima

Biography

My name is Brand D. Nakashima and I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the UW-Madison History program. My research interests focus on the impact that transnational relationships and geopolitics have on diasporic communities and migratory flows in the 20th century. My dissertation concentrates on the displacement and immigration of Japanese Latin Americans (with an emphasis on Japanese Peruvians) to the United States (U.S.) after being interned by the U.S. during WWII. I aim to further investigate how the continuation of violence—and the reaction to said violence—shapes identity, resistance, and a sense of belonging in diasporic communities globally and nationally.

Education

M.A., U.S./North American History, University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.A., History and Anthropology, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana

Field

• U.S./North American History

MA Title

• “Expanding Japanese America: The Hemispheric Afterlife of Japanese Peruvian Internment in the United States “

Working Dissertation Title

• “Healing and Violence: The Transnational Afterlife of Japanese Latin American Internment”

Selected Awards

• Kate Everest Levi Second-Year Paper Prize, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 2022
• Early Excellence in Teaching Award (History Department), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022
• Mark H. Leff Scholarship for Outstanding Honors Thesis, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, 2019

Courses Taught as TA

• History 136 – Sport, Recreation, & Society in the United States (Fall 2023)
• History/CHICLA 152 – U.S. West Since 1850 (Spring 2023)
• History/Asian American Studies 160 – Process of Movement and Dislocation (Fall 2022)
• History/LACIS 260 – Latin America: An Introduction (Spring 2022)
• History 460 – American Environmental History (Fall 2021)