Mark Redondo Villegas is an assistant professor in American Studies at Franklin & Marshall College. He received his PhD in culture and theory at the University of California, Irvine and MA in Asian American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.He is currently revising a book manuscript, tentatively titled Savage Vernacular: Performing Race, Memory, and Hip Hop in Filipino America. This project investigates the ways in which Filipino American hip hop performance recuperates the history and culture of American conquest in Asia. Hip hop culture, accordingly, operates as a popular site for Filipino Americans to investigate their racial position in history and the world, expanding the opportunities for practitioners to author their popular representation.He published "Currents of Militarization, Flows of Hip Hop: Expanding the Geographies of Filipino American Culture" in the Journal of Asian American Studies (Vol. 19, Number 1, 2016). He is also co-editor of the pioneering anthology Empire of Funk: Hip Hop and Representation in Filipina/o America (Cognella Academic Press 2014).Mark began his academic career as an independent, community-based filmmaker. His films have appeared in classrooms, conferences, and film festivals around the United States and in the Philippines. His works largely focus on Filipino American communities and hip hop culture. He has taught in Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego; the University of California, Irvine; California State University, Long Beach; and the University of Florida.