Rate My Professor Dawn Mabalon

Dawn Mabalon is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at San Francisco State University, appointed in 2020 after serving as Associate Professor with tenure since 2004. Born and raised in Stockton, California, as a third-generation Filipina American, she earned her Ph.D. in History from Stanford University in January 2004, with a dissertation titled Life in Little Manila: Filipinas/os in Stockton, California, 1917-1972, advised by Dr. Gordon Chang, Dr. Albert Camarillo, and Dr. Anthony Antonio. She holds an M.A. in Asian American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1997, with a thesis on Filipina Pioneers: The Pinay in Stockton, California, 1929-1946, and a B.A. in History, magna cum laude, with specialization in Asian American Studies from UCLA in 1994. Her research interests include race and ethnicity, 20th-century U.S. history, California and the West, Asian American History and Studies, Philippine and Filipina/o American history, gender, community and family history, immigration, youth cultures, urban history, cultural and historic preservation in ethnic communities, food cultures and foodways, and U.S. empire in the Philippines.

Mabalon's major publications include the award-winning book Little Manila Is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California (Duke University Press, 2013), which earned an Honorable Mention for the Frederick Jackson Turner Award; Filipinos in Stockton (Arcadia Publishing, 2008, with Ricardo J. Reyes, the Stockton Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society, and the Little Manila Foundation); and as co-editor of Filipinos in San Francisco (Arcadia Publishing, 2011). Key articles feature “As American as Jackrabbit Adobo: Cooking, Eating and Becoming Filipina/o American Before World War II” in Eating Asian America (New York University Press, 2013), “Losing Little Manila: Race and Redevelopment in Filipina/o Stockton, California” in Positively No Filipinos Allowed (Temple University Press, 2006), and “Beauty Queens, Bomber Pilots and Basketball Players: Second Generation Filipinas” in Pinay Power (Routledge, 2005). She received the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship for Excellence in College and University Teaching (2007-2008), San Francisco State University Presidential Professional Development Award for a 2007 sabbatical, President’s Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation (2007, with the Little Manila Foundation), Filipinas Magazine Achievement Award for Community Service (2004), and Captain Charles M. Weber Award (2008). Mabalon co-founded the Little Manila Foundation in 1999, advancing historic preservation efforts, and contributed to teacher training in Filipina/o American and Ethnic Studies, public lectures, and documentaries, profoundly shaping the field of History through her community-engaged scholarship. In 2025, San Francisco State University awarded her a posthumous honorary doctoral degree.