Congratulations to Dr. Melissa Borja, whose book, Follow the New Way: American Refugee Resettlement Policy and Hmong Religious Change (Harvard UP) received the Outstanding Contribution in History Citation from the 2025 AAAS Book Awards! Dr. Borja is an Associate Professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan. Her book explores how American resettlement policies altered the Hmong religious landscape and how the Hmong embraced Christianity on their own terms, adjusting to American spiritual life while finding opportunities to preserve their customs.
The AAAS Book Awards Committee describes Dr. Borja’s achievement below:
“Borja’s path breaking monograph establishes a foundation for Hmong American studies that is transnational in scope and captures the infrastructural aspects of their migration and settlement that have significantly shaped their acculturation experiences. In doing so Borja combines social and religious history with a detailed organizational history and critique of refugee processing and U.S. settlement agencies. Beautifully written, deeply insightful, and grounded in rigorous archival research and oral history, her thoughtful consideration of the failures of a “pluralist” incorporation of refugees in America also pushes us to think more expansively about religion, culture, and migration in Asian American studies and beyond. Borja’s study speaks to multiple scholarly fields in ways that position Hmong American studies to participate in broader conversations.”
Congratulations, Dr. Borja!