Associate Professor of Literature Brandon Som Among 100th Class of Guggenheim Fellows

Som is a Chicano and Chinese American poet who has published two works, including “The Tribute Horse,” and “Tripas.” These focus on the immigration story of his Chinese American grandfather as well as the experiences of his Chicana grandmother, who worked at a Motorola factory at night while caring for her children and grandchildren during the day. Som’s next work will continue this throughline, continuing to contemplate the intersections of labor, culture, history and childcare.

“I applaud Brandon Som on his recent selection as a Guggenheim Fellow; he is uniquely skilled in sharing stories from the heart that translate as both highly personal and widely relevant,” said Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities Cristina Della Coletta. “Som’s work exemplifies the value of creative writing in opening conversation about working class experiences among transnational communities—topics that are underrepresented in contemporary literature.”

Drawing parallels and finding inspiration

While his family will remain a central theme in his next book, Som is also drawing significant inspiration from an American modernist artist he first discovered as an undergraduate in college named Ruth Asawa. Born in California and raised by Japanese parents who immigrated to the United States, she was interned at a concentration camp in 1942, a time when Japanese Americans were deemed a threat to national security.

At the camp, Asawa spent her time drawing with artists from the Disney Studio who were also interned. After over a year in multiple camps, she graduated from high school and entered college, initially pursuing a teaching degree then pivoting (after facing barriers to earning teaching credits) to Black Mountain College to study art. The education was transformational and sparked a career as an artist that spanned over five decades—during which time she also married and nurtured a family of six children.

“I was seeking out mentors for how to continue to be both a caregiver and art maker, to discover how these two acts could be entwined, how they might inform each other,” explained Som. “I revisited Asawa’s career in a new light after becoming a parent.”

Som finds many parallels with Asawa, who as an Asian American artist had a deeply transnational experience. He is also interested in her use of line in the wires of her sculpture, which ties into his most recent book that focused on wires, loops and connections, including his grandmother’s work at the Motorola assembly line inspecting the wiring of microchips.

Som’s grandmother, affectionately referred to as “Nana Pastora,” holds a sense of humor that draws upon language play across Mexican Spanish and American English. And his grandfathers were both avid readers that instilled a love of books in Som, who became the first in his family to graduate from college. These experiences shaped his path as a poet.

“Growing up in an extended family that was multilingual—my paternal side speaking a dialect from southern China and my maternal side speaking Spanish—led me to develop a love of languages,” shared Som. “I became attuned to the musical and semantic qualities, the poetic possibilities of working across languages and cultures. This led me to poetry.”

The Guggenheim Fellowship will enable Som to spend more time writing as well as the opportunity to visit sites that were significant to Asawa, including visiting the archive of her papers at Stanford University and traveling to Black Mountain College in North Carolina where she studied art.

“It’s a great honor that they selected my work, and to be included in the 100th year of fellows,” said Som. “The poets that have received this honor in the past are poets that I look up to and that I teach in my courses here at UC San Diego.”

He added, “I think it’s meaningful to receive this fellowship at a time when these very same fields and the universities that support them are under threat by funding cuts and attacks on free speech. This award underscores the long tradition of excellence within the creative arts, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences.”

UC San Diego faculty are consistently honored with Guggenheim Fellowships, most recently Jac Jemc (literature) and Patrick Anderson (communication and ethnic studies) in 2023. Additional former fellows include Amy Adler (visual arts, 2021); Akif Tezcan (chemistry and biochemistry, 2021); Massimo Franceschetti (electrical and computer engineering, 2019); Nicole Miller (visual arts, 2018); Kiran Kedlaya (mathematics, 2014): Rae Armantrout (literature, 2008); and Gary Cox (political science, 1995); among others.