Erika Lee

Erika Lee is a historian and author. She is currently the inaugural Bae Family Professor of History at Harvard University, a position she began in July 2023. In addition, she is still active as an award-winning author, known for her non-fiction work upon the subjects of immigration and Asian American history in America. Previously, she was the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair and Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota.

Early life and education Lee is the granddaughter of Chinese immigrants, growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Lee attended Tufts University before continuing her studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she earned an M.A. in 1993 and a PhD in 1998.

Career Erika Lee served as the director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Minnesota throughout 2003-2006, in addition to directing the Asian Studies Program (2009-2012), and the Immigration History Research Center and Archives(2012).

During her time at the University of Minnesota, she has also founded, written and edited for multiple online humanities projects that include but are not limited to: Immigrants in COVID America, Immigrant Stories, and the #ImmigrationSyllabus.

Recently, Erika Lee has accepted the position of the inaugural Bae Family Professor of History at Harvard University in 2023.

As an author, Erika Lee is noted to have written five non-fiction books, for which she has received multiple awards such as the American Book Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Her most recent work is Made in Asian America: A History for Young People (2024), cowritten with Newberry-award winning author Christina Soontornvat.

Contributions

Lee, Erika (2011). "Chapter 1: A Nation of Immigrants and a Gatekeeping Nation: American Immigration Law and Policy" In Reed, Ueda (eds.). A companion to American immigration. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. .

Journal articles

Awards 2015 Immigrant Heritage Award in Education from the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation 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 2020 American Book Awards