Diego Salinas

Diego Salinas Yee is a current Ph.D. student in ethnomusicology at the University of Texas at Austin whose research focuses on Chinese diasporas within Latin America. His dissertation work is focused on the intersections of sound, ethnic identity, and performance within Chinese lion dance groups in Lima, Peru. His work seeks to further the field of Asian-American studies within Latin American studies while also borrowing from tourism and performance studies.

He has presented his research at conferences inside and outside of the US: “El oriente a tus pies: los barrios chinos como sitios turísticos” at the 2023 Congreso FAM-UNAM in Mexico City and “Can you have the Holy Spirit without Haze?: How Worship Pastors Navigate Contemporary Worship Music” at the Florida Undergraduate Research Conference in 2022.

Salinas earned his B.F.A in Cello Performance at the University of North Florida (2018). At the University of Texas at Austin he works as a teaching assistant for several courses in the Butler School of Music. He also participated in a faculty-led research project in collaboration with the City of Austin whose findings he will present at a roundtable at the 2024 meeting for the Society for Ethnomusicology.

His other research interests include other Asian diasporas in Latin America such as the Nikkei in Peru, and Contemporary Worship Music in American Evangelical megachurches.