Ryan Buyco

Ryan Buyco is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University, specializing in Oceanic Filipinx studies and Asian settler colonial critique. His research examines travel narratives as decolonial practices within contexts of US militarization and Indigenous sovereignty struggles across the Pacific.

Dr. Buyco's current book projects include Island Under the Sun: Filipino American Detours in Okinawa, which analyzes Filipino diasporic experiences in militarized Okinawan spaces, and The Weight of Culture: A Panakayon of Stone, Sea, and Spirit, exploring ancestral Polynesian rock lifting through Ilonggo cultural frameworks. His scholarship connects island histories through shared colonial legacies.

As co-founder of the Filipinx Travel Writers Collective, Buyco promotes critical dialogue about genre conventions and decolonial storytelling. He has received fellowships from Fulbright-Hays and the Consortium of Faculty Diversity to support his transnational research.