Rate My Professor Richard Chu

Richard T. Chu serves as Five College Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He holds an A.B. from Ateneo de Manila University (1986), an M.A. from Stanford University (1992), and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California (2003). Chu's scholarship centers on the history of Chinese and Chinese mestizos in the Philippines during the colonial period, Chinese diasporic communities in Southeast Asia and beyond, and Asian Pacific American history. His work examines critical themes including race, ethnicity, gender, empire, nationalism, and sexuality. Currently, he is engaged in documenting the history of Filipinos in Massachusetts through collaborative oral history initiatives with Asian American communities in Western Massachusetts, including Bhutanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, and Tibetan groups. These oral histories are archived in the Special Collections and Archives Division of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library.

Chu is the author of two monographs: The Chinese and Chinese Mestizos of Manila: Family, Identity, and Culture, 1860s-1930s (Brill, 2010; Anvil Publishing, 2012) and The Chinese Merchants of Binondo in the Nineteenth Century (University of Santo Tomas Press, 2010). He has edited volumes such as More Tsinoy Than We Admit: Chinese-Filipino Interaction Over the Centuries (Vibal Publishing, 2015), The State of Scholarship on the Chinese in the Philippines: Problems, Perspectives, and Possibilities (2021), and More Tomboy, More Bakla Than We Admit: Insights into Sexual and Gender Diversity in Philippine Culture, History, and Politics (Vibal Publishing, 2021, co-edited with Mark Blasius). His peer-reviewed articles include “Including the Excluded: The ‘Chinese’ in the Philippines and the Study of ‘Migration’ in Filipinx American Studies” (Fordham University Press, 2022) and “From ‘Sangley’ to ‘Chinaman,’ ‘Chinese Mestizo’ to ‘Tsinoy’: Unpacking ‘Chinese’ Identities in the Philippines at the Turn of the Twentieth-Century” (Asian Ethnicity, 2021). In 2021, Chu received the Distinguished Community Engagement Award from the UMass Amherst Provost’s Office for his community-engaged teaching. He has been re-appointed to the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and joined the UMass Amherst History Department in 2004.