Aya Shirayama

Aya Shirayama is a Ph.D. candidate in the Sociology program at UH Manoa. She holds a B.A. in Foreign Studies and International Relations from Sophia University, Japan. Additionally, she holds an M.A. in Sociology from UH Manoa and attained all-but-dissertation status in the Spring 2024 semester. Her research interests encompass diaspora, race and ethnicity, cultural sociology, and Asian Americans. She presented a comparative analysis of three Okinawan cookbooks in Hawaii at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in 2022. Currently, she is writing a dissertation on the diasporic identity of Okinawan immigrants in Hawaii, Los Angeles, and Tsurumi-city in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan. Her research focuses on cultural practices, particularly food and festivals, to compare their diasporic identities. 

She is a recipient of the Sakihara Award of the Sociology Department in 2024. She is a graduate assistant at the Center for Okinawan Studies in UH Manoa (2023-2025) and has also been involved in the Okinawan communities in Hawaii (e.g., volunteered at andagi cooking in the Okinawan Festival, WUB Hawaii, and Hui O Laulima, etc.).