Issay Matsumoto
Biography
Issay Matsumoto is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Southern California. He received his BA summa cum laude from Tufts University, majoring in History and American Studies with a minor in Asian American Studies.
His work focuses on histories of capitalism, gender, and empire in the Pacific world. His dissertation explores the local and global consequences of Honolulu’s development during the Cold War.
Matsumoto’s research has been supported and recognized by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Labor and Working-Class History Association, UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and various institutions at USC. His scholarship has been published in American Quarterly and the Journal of American Ethnic History.
For the 2025-2026 academic year, Matsumoto is a Visiting Colleague in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawaii – West Oahu.
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Conference Presentations
- Association for Asian American Studies , 4/2026
- NYU A/P/A Graduate Student Symposium , 3/2026
- Western History Association , 10/2025
- Urban History Association , 10/2025
- WHA Graduate Student Research Workshop , 10/2025
- Japanese Association for American Studies Proseminar , 6/2025
- Stanford University Hoover Institution and Japanese Association for Migration Studies Third International Workshop on Japanese Diaspora , 9/2024
- Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association , 8/2024
- UC Irvine Global Asias , 4/2024
- Labor and Working-Class History Association Dissertation Prospectus Workshop , 11/2023
- Philippine Studies Conference in Japan , 11/2022
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Book Review
- (2024). Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment. Journal of American Ethnic History.pp. 114-116. https://doi.org/10.5406/19364695.43.4.13
Journal Article
- (2024). Transpacific Muumuus and the Rise of Japanese Neocolonial Tourism in Hawaiʻi. American Quarterly. Vol. 76 (4), pp. 737-765. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2024.a945169
Other
- (2024). Beyond the Page. American Quarterly. https://www.americanquarterly.org/content/764-december-2024
- (2025). Proseminar Report. Japanese Association for American Studies. https://www.jaas.gr.jp/wp23/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Proseminar2025-Reports-by-Participants.pdf
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- Phi Kappa Phi Student Recognition Award, 2026
- Association of Centers for the Study of Congress Richard A. Baker Graduate Student Research Travel Grant, 2025
- Labor and Working-Class History Association Alice Kessler-Harris Dissertation Prospectus Award, 2025
- Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Samuel Flagg Bemis Dissertation Research Grant, 2025
- Toshiba International Foundation Summer Fellowship, 2025
- Nippon Foundation Fellowship (IUC), 2024-2025
- CUNY Asian American / Asian Research Institute Betty Lee Sung Research Endowed Fund, 2024
- Immigration and Ethnic History Society Digital Seed Grant, 2023 – 2024
- UCLA Asian American Studies Center Sugahara Project Archival Fellowship, 2023
- USC Center for Transpacific Studies Research Fellowship, 2022
- USC East Asian Studies Center Fellowship, 2022