Editorial Note:
This blog feature was created by the Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD) Media Editor, Stephanie Wilson, in celebration of the first place winner in AKD’s 2025 graduate student paper competition, Kennedy Chi-pan Wong.
Each year AKD sponsors a graduate student paper competition. Winners are eligible to win cash prizes and travel money to attend the American Sociological Association annual conference. The first place winner received $500 and up to $1,000 in travel expenses to the 2025 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.
Continue reading to learn more about Kennedy Chi-pan Wong‘s winning paper!
Meet Kennedy Chi-pan Wong
Kennedy Chi-pan Wong is a recent PhD graduate from the University of Southern California’s Department of Sociology and Assistant Professor of Sociology at The King’s University in Canada. His research focuses how migrants and exiles build political alliances across borders while also confronting conflicts and a series of paradoxes in their struggles against authoritarianism; and his paper titled “Resisting China, Supporting Trump? Mapping Political Identities Among Hong Kongers in the United States” won him a first place prize in the 2025 AKD graduate student paper competition.
To learn more about Kennedy and his research, we reached out for a brief interview. Continue reading below to learn more about Kennedy, his research, and his future goals as a sociologist! You can also connect with Kennedy on Instagram, X, or Bluesky.
Can you briefly summarize your award-winning paper?
This paper examines why some Hong Kongers in the United States, despite supporting Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, have aligned with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research and 60 interviews, it argues that this conservative alignment emerges through two pathways: (1) a strategic geopolitical identification with Trump’s confrontational stance toward China, and (2) an ideological re-alignment with “anti-left” U.S. right-wing politics that echoes resistance to perceived leftist authoritarianism in Hong Kong. The paper introduces a “mapping” approach to analyze how diasporic groups construct political identities across transnational contexts, showing how homeland-centered activism shapes immigrant conservatism as a form of political incorporation in the hostland.
What motivated you to write on the topic of your paper?
My motivation for writing this paper came from an unexpected tension I encountered during fieldwork. As someone deeply engaged with the Hong Kong diaspora after the 2019 protests, I initially set out to document their efforts to promote democracy and resist authoritarianism. But as I attended rallies, joined organizational meetings, and followed online discussions, I noticed something surprising: a growing number of Hong Kong activists in the U.S.—many of whom were vocal critics of the Chinese Communist Party—were also outspoken supporters of Donald Trump and deeply critical of all forms of leftist politics. They often found themselves in direct conflict with others who viewed the movement as rooted in progressive, left-leaning ideals. Conflicts, divisions, and fragmentation emerged as these diaspora migrants translated their homeland democracy movement into the political terrain of the hostland.
While it is tempting to label these Trump supporters as “far-right,” the fractures between them and other Hong Kongers revealed something more puzzling and troubling. Their experience resisting a postcolonial, left-authoritarian regime seemed to shape a political worldview in which ‘the Left’ became the enemy across contexts. In their search for a shared adversary, many turned on each other, exposing divergent and often conflicting interpretations of what the democratic movement represented. That paradox became the starting point of this research.
I came to see this not as a contradiction, but as a window into the complexity of transnational political identification. This realization led me to adopt a “mapping” approach, grounded in the cultural interactionist tradition, to make sense of how diaspora groups navigate multiple political terrains and construct relational understandings of political identity and affiliation.
If you had to choose one major takeaway to share from your paper, what would that be?
Immigrant political alignment cannot be fully understood through Western categories like “left” or “right.” Instead, it must be seen as a relational process shaped by how migrants reinterpret past political struggles and define their group relationships with various actors across multiple national contexts.
In the case of Hong Kongers in the U.S., support for Trump and the Republican Party was not simply an adoption of American conservatism, but also a transnational translation of anti-authoritarian resistance rooted in their homeland experience. For many, “the Left” came to symbolize authoritarianism, echoing what they opposed in Hong Kong. This broaden our understanding of conservative Asian Americans and calls for a more nuanced understanding of how diasporic identities and alliances are formed through layered, cross-border dynamics.
What have been your biggest “aha” moments while studying sociology?
One of the biggest “aha” moments I’ve had while studying sociology came when I realized that political ideologies are not fixed categories, but relational constructions that migrate, shift, and transform across borders. I used to assume that terms like “liberal,” “conservative,” “democrat,” or “authoritarian” had clear, universal meanings. But during my fieldwork with Hong Kong diaspora communities in the U.S., I saw how people who shared the same democratic goals in one place could end up on opposite sides of the political spectrum in another. This raised a larger puzzle that I’ve encountered not only in the U.S., but also in Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere: Why do some immigrants support nativist political agendas?
For instance, I observed how some Hong Kongers—despite their history of resisting authoritarian rule—aligned themselves with right-wing U.S. politics, even embracing political figures widely criticized for undemocratic tendencies. This wasn’t just a contradiction—it pointed to a deeper process of how people seek and make political meaning across different national contexts.
That insight fundamentally reshaped how I think about identity, ideology, and political behavior—not as static attributes, but as relational and contingent processes shaped by context, history, and lived experience. It taught me to look beyond surface labels and ask how people construct meaning across the shifting ground of migration and power. That, to me, is the core of what sociology makes possible.
How do you see yourself using sociology in your future career after earning your graduate degree?
After earning my PhD in Sociology, I will be joining The King’s University in Edmonton, Canada, as an Assistant Professor of Sociology. In this role, I plan to continue using sociology as both a research and pedagogical tool to understand and engage with the most pressing social and political challenges of our time.
I am particularly excited to teach a course I’ve been developing titled “Democracy at the End of the World,” which invites students to critically examine the future of democratic values in the face of rising authoritarianism, climate crisis, mass displacement, and digital surveillance. Drawing from my research on transnational activism and diaspora politics, I aim to help students explore how democracy is practiced, contested, and redefined across different cultural and geopolitical contexts.
In addition to teaching, I will continue publishing scholarly work and am currently working on a book based on my dissertation research. Through this work, I hope to contribute to broader conversations about political identity, migration, and the future of global democracy. Just as importantly, I am committed to nurturing students to think sociologically—encouraging them to move beyond the simple binaries that often dominate cultural and political discourse, and to develop a deeper, more relational understanding of the world around them.
Lastly, how has being involved in AKD impacted your experience as a graduate student in the social sciences?
Being involved in AKD has been an important part of my experience as a graduate student in the social sciences. AKD has supported my work in many meaningful ways—through conference travel funding, recognition of academic excellence, and the sense of being part of a broader scholarly community. These forms of support not only validated my research but also enabled me to share it with wider audiences and connect with fellow sociologists across institutions.
More than just logistical or financial support, AKD helped me feel part of a collective effort to advance sociology as a discipline that matters in the world. I especially appreciated the work of our two chapter representatives at USC, Valentina and Maria, who did an excellent job circulating opportunities and actively engaging with students. Participating in AKD-sponsored conferences and events gave me the chance to learn from others, gain feedback on my work, and grow as both a scholar and educator. It was a consistent source of encouragement and affirmation during the often isolating phases of graduate study.
As I transition into a faculty role, I carry with me the values of academic excellence, intellectual curiosity, and scholarly community that have shaped my graduate training—and I’m grateful for the ways AKD contributed to that formation. I look forward to supporting the next generation of sociology students in that same spirit.