Ayaka Yoshimizu

Ayaka Yoshimizu 美水彩加 is a Japanese settler on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh, and Skwxwú7mesh Peoples and an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. She teaches transpacific histories and cultures, Indigeneities in Asia and Asian diaspora, and embodied and decolonial methodologies. Her current research looks at various sites, objects, and practices that commemorate the deaths of Japanese sex workers involved in transnational and interracial sex trade in the late 19th century through early 20th century in the transpacific world. Through this research she also explores how to grieve the deaths of Japanese transient migrants that took place on stolen Indigenous Lands, and how to cultivate a translocal space to acknowledge other neglected losses in the past and present.