Rebecca Riger Tsurumi has worked as a journalist/editor in Latin America and the United States. A Latinamericanist who focuses on relations between Asia and Latin America, she received a PhD in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages from the CUNY Graduate Center and has taught Spanish language and literature courses at various colleges within the City University of New York, SUNY Purchase College, and Adelphi University. She resides with her family in New York.