Her research and teaching focus on the historical intersections between Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, post-emancipation Caribbean societies, race and ethnicity in the Americas, and international migration. Her book Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History (2013) examines Chinese migrants in Cuba from the mid-nineteenth century to the present through archival and ethnographic research in Cuba, China, and the United States. She is also an editor of Historical and Cultural Interconnections between Latin America and Asia, a new book series from Palgrave Macmillan.