Oral History Interview, Kong Pheng Pha (2550)

Abstract

In his July 2025 interview with Edwin Elizabeth Thomas, Kong Pheng Pha discusses his role as an assistant professor in UW-Madison’s Gender & Women’s Studies (GWS) Department with a joint appointment in Asian American Studies. He first became interested in these fields of study through watching his immigrant parents work in factories, becoming passionate about activism from there. He joined the department three years prior to the interview, and he recalls the main conversations in the department circling around COVID-19 and the social movements that sparked during the pandemic, such as Black Lives Matter. This interview was conducted for inclusion into the GWS @ 50 Oral History Project of the UW-Madison Archives & Records Management oral history collection.