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“The Making of Asian America” with Erika Lee

Name: “The Making of Asian America” with Erika Lee
Start: 2016-03-26T13:00:00-08:00
End: 2016-03-26T13:00:00-08:00

March 26, 2016 @ 1:00 pm

Erika Lee and her critically acclaimed book “The Making of Asian America” is coming to CHSA on Saturday, March 26. Please join us in the Main Gallery as Erika Lee discusses her new book followed by a brief Q&A. Books will be sold, light refreshments will be served.

This event is co-presented by Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, San Francisco State University’s Asian American Studies Department, The Oakland Asian Cultural Center, and National Japanese American Historical Society.

This is a free event but RSVPs are required. RSVPs begin 2/24/2016.

Event Update: RSVPs have sold out. We encourage everyone to come as early as possible. We will give priority to those with tickets. Please don’t be late! If you are not here 10 minutes before the event starts, your seats will be released.

Brief synopsis:

An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured “coolies” who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a “despised minority,” Asian Americans are now held up as America’s “model minorities” in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States. More on Simon and Schuster here.

Erika Lee is the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History and Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of two award-winning books in U.S. immigration history: At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943 and Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America (co-authored with Judy Yung), as well as several articles and book chapters related to immigration and Asian American history. Her most recent book, The Making of Asian America: A History has been called “sweeping,” “comprehensive,” and “fascinating” by the New York Times and a “long overdue stirring chronicle” by the LA Times. It was an “Editor’s Choice” by the New York Times and named to the Best Nonfiction Books of 2015 list by Kirkus Reviews, the “10 Can’t-Miss History Books of 2015” by History Buffs and to the LA Times’ 2015 “Reading for the Season” list.

She has been the recipient of numerous national awards, including best book awards from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, the Association for Asian American Studies, the American Librarians Association, and the Western Historical Association and the Immigrant Heritage Award from the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation. Lee is an active public intellectual who regularly appears in the media and is a widely sought-after speaker around the U.S. and internationally, including a tour in Taiwan arranged by the U.S. State Department. She is also an award-winning teacher and has served as a historical advisor and consultant on many public history projects. At the Immigration History Research Center, she launched and oversees the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded Immigrant Stories Digital Storytelling Project that works with recent immigrants and refugees to collect, preserve, and share their experiences.

Co-presented by: