About
Xiaoyan Li is a PhD candidate in American Studies at the University of Kansas. She earned her MA from Columbia University’s Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA) program, where her thesis examined Kuomintang veterans in diaspora and challenged dominant narratives that erased their trauma and postwar struggles. Her current research focuses on Chinese sent-down youth who fled to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution and later migrated to the United States under Cold War refugee policies. Using trauma-informed oral history, she explores how survivors reinvent identity and build sense of belonging in diaspora through commemoration, storytelling, and community networks. Prior to her doctoral studies, Xiaoyan conducted more than 80 oral history interviews with Chinese intellectuals, engineers, and multiple generations of English learners. Her work centers on memory, diaspora, trauma, and the enduring impact of state violence and displacement. She has served as Chair of the Oral History Association’s Emerging Crisis Oral History Funding Committee for the past three years.