Her research focuses on the conception of race through literature written by Asian immigrants in the Americas, as well as the representation of race in Japan in post–World War II literature and film. Most recently, she coedited the volume Imagining Asia in the Americas (Rutgers University Press, 2016). She is currently completing a book manuscript, Caught In-Between: Interstitial Identities in Japanese Brazilian Cultural Productions, which uses an interdisciplinary approach to examine historical documents alongside novels, television dramas, poetry, memoirs, and films that depict Japanese immigrants to Brazil and Japanese Brazilian returnees in Japan, spanning 1908-present.