Catherine Ceniza Choy

Contributions and Distinctions

Catherine Ceniza Choy is Professor of Ethnic Studies and an Associate Dean of the College of Letters & Science’s Division of Undergraduate Studies. She is UC Berkeley's first tenured Filipino American studies professor. Catherine chaired the Department of Ethnic Studies for four years from 2012-2015 and 2017-2018.

Biographical Sketch  

Catherine Ceniza Choy received her B.A. (1991) from Pomona College, Claremont and her M.A. (1993) and Ph.D. (1998) in History from the University of California, Los Angeles. Aside from being recognized as an award-winning Asian American historian and professor at UC Berkeley with scholarly specialties in Asian American history, Filipino American studies, race, gender, and migration, nursing history, and adoption studies, she is the author of the book, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (2003), which explores how and why the Philippines became the leading exporter of professional nurses to the United States. Empire of Care received the 2003 American Journal of Nursing History and Public Policy Book Award and the 2005 Association for Asian American Studies History Book Award. In 2022 her book was also awarded a Kirkus Star from Kirkus Reviews for books of exceptional merrit. The following year it was selected as a nonfiction finalist for the 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Professor Choy has been interviewed, quoted, and/or had her research on the history of Filipino nurse migration cited in over two dozen media outlets, including stories in The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and ProPublica, on the role of Filipino health workers in the COVID-19 pandemic. Catherine’s second book, Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America (2013), unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S. military in Asia. She is the co-editor (with Judy Tzu-Chun Wu) of the Brill book series Gendering the Trans-Pacific World