Erika Lee

Erika Lee
Education	Tufts University (BA) University of California, Berkeley (MA, PhD)
Genres	Nonfiction History
Notable awards	Caughey Western History Association Prize

Erika Lee is the inaugural Bae Family Professor of History at Harvard University, a position she began in July 2023. Previously, she was the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair and Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota and an award-winning non-fiction writer.

Early life

Lee is the granddaughter of Chinese immigrants. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Career

Lee graduated with a degree in history at Tufts University in 1991 before continuing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned an M.A. in 1993 and a PhD in 1998. She has authored four books on American history, which have received several awards. At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943 (2003) won the 2003 Theodore Saloutos prize for the best book in immigration studies and the 2003 History Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America (2010) received the Caughey Prize in Western History from the Western History Association as well as the 2010 Adult Non-Fiction Award in Asian Pacific American Literature from the American Library Association. The Making of Asian America: A History (2016) won the 2015–2016 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature in Adult Non-Fiction from the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association. America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (2019) won the 2020 American Book Awards from the Before Columbus Foundation.

Published works

Books

• Lee, Erika (2003). At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882–1943. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807827758.
• —; Yung, Judy (2010). Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199734085.
• — (2016). The Making of Asian America: A History. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1476739403.
• — (2019). America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-1541672604.
• —; Soontornvat, Christina (April 30, 2024). Made in Asian America: a History for Young People. Quill Tree Books. ISBN 978-0-06-324293-7.

Contributions

• Lee, Erika (2004). "Chapter 6: American Gatekeeping: Race and Immigration Law in the Twentieth Century". In Foner, Nancy; Fredrickson, George M. (eds.). Not Just Black and White: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Immgiration, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. pp. 119–144. ISBN 978-0871542595. JSTOR 10.7758/9781610442114.
• — (2010). "Chapter 9: The Chinese Are Coming. How Can We Stop Them? Chinese Exclusion and the Origins of American Gatekeeping". In Yu-Wen Shen Wu, Jean; Chen, Thomas (eds.). Asian American Studies Now: A Critical Reader. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. pp. 143–167. ISBN 978-0813545745. JSTOR j.ctt1bmzn3s.
• — (2012). "Chapter 11: The "Yellow Peril" in the United States and Peru: A Transnational History of Japanese Exclusion, 1920s–World War II". In Fojas, Camilla; Guevarra, Rudy P. (eds.). Transnational Crossroads: Remapping the Americas and the Pacific. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. pp. 315–358. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1ddr6mv. ISBN 978-0803237957. JSTOR j.ctt1ddr6mv.

Journal articles

• Lee, Erika (1999). "Immigrants and Immigration Law: A State of the Field Assessment". Journal of American Ethnic History. 18 (4): 85–114. JSTOR 27502472.
• — (2002). "The Chinese Exclusion Example: Race, Immigration, and American Gatekeeping, 1882–1924". Journal of American Ethnic History. 21 (3): 36–62. doi:10.2307/27502847. JSTOR 27502847. S2CID 157999472.
• — (2002). "Enforcing the Borders: Chinese Exclusion along the U.S. Borders with Canada and Mexico, 1882–1924". The Journal of American History. 89 (1): 54–86. doi:10.2307/2700784. JSTOR 2700784.
• — (2007). "he "Yellow Peril" and Asian Exclusion in the Americas". Pacific Historical Review. 76 (4): 537–562. doi:10.1525/phr.2007.76.4.537. JSTOR 10.1525/phr.2007.76.4.537. S2CID 145388977.
• — (2015). "A Part and Apart: Asian American and Immigration History". Journal of American Ethnic History. 34 (4): 28–42. doi:10.5406/jamerethnhist.34.4.0028. JSTOR 10.5406/jamerethnhist.34.4.0028.
• —; Gabaccia, Donna (2017). "The Role of the Public Historian: An Interview with Donna Gabaccia". Journal of American Ethnic History. 37 (1): 70–77. doi:10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.1.0070. JSTOR 10.5406/jamerethnhist.37.1.0070.

Awards

• 2016 Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Awards for The Making of Asian America: a History
• 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
• 2018 Distinguished Historian Award from the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era
• 2018 Distinguished Lecturer in the Organization of American Historians
• 2020 American Book Awards

External links

• Faculty Page – University of Minnesota
• Erika Lee Homepage