Michael Nishimura (he/him) is a PhD candidate in sociology at UCSB. Michael researches the relationship between Asian racialization, the carceral state, and the migrant punishment system. His dissertation focuses on the pathways and livelihoods of formerly incarcerated and deportable Asian Americans to explore the connections between Asian racialization, carcerality, and ongoing imperial relations. Critiquing normative understandings of "reentry," it analyzes how social control and economic precarity affect Asian Americans and provides novel theorizations of criminalization and racialization processes. The research also centers anti-carceral and anti-deportation organizing led by systems-impacted people to explore the complexities of solidarity and community building towards collective liberation.

Michael is also an organizer with mutual aid and abolitionist organizations in Los Angeles. He received an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science and BA from Vassar College.