American historian
Mae Ngai is an American historian currently serving as Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University .[ 1] nationalism , citizenship , ethnicity , immigration , and race in 20th-century United States history.
Early life and education
Ngai is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and describes herself as a student who took a non-traditional route. She took a break from her schooling in 1972 to work as a community activist. After working in the Education and Political Action Department and the Consortium for Worker Education as a researcher and professional labor educator in an environment "where being Chinese and being American existed in tension, but not in contradiction,"[ 2] [ 3]
Ngai holds a BA from Empire State College , a MA (1993) and PhD (1998) from Columbia University , where she wrote her dissertation under Eric Foner .[ 4]
Academic career
After graduation, Ngai obtained postdoctoral fellowships from the Social Science Research Council , the New York University School of Law , and, in 2003, the Radcliffe Institute .[ 4] University of Chicago as an associate professor before returning to Columbia as a full professor in 2006.[ 5]
Ngai is especially interested in problems of nationalism, citizenship, and race as they are produced historically in law and society, in processes of transnational migration, and in the formation of ethno-racial communities.[ 6]
In addition to publishing in numerous academic journals, Ngai has written on immigration and related policy for the Washington Post New York Times ,Los Angeles Times The Nation Boston Review [ 5]
Ngai's most notable work was Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America ,illegal alien " in the early 20th century and its social and historical consequences and context.[ 2]
Courses taught
Source:[ 1]
Immigrants in American History and Life, Lecture
Colonization/Decolonization, Undergraduate Seminar
Transnational Migration and Citizenship, Graduate & Undergraduate Seminar
Historiography for PhD students
Awards and honors
Source:[ 1]
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 2022[ 7]
Bancroft Prize , 2022[ 8] Shelby Collum Davis for Historical Studies, Princeton University, Spring 2018
Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North, Library of Congress, Fall 2017
Huntington Library, Spring 2017
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2013
OAH-AHRAC China Residency Program, 2013
Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 2012
Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, New York Public Library, 2012
Institute for Advanced Study, 2009
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2009
Huntington Library, 2006
Frederick Jackson Turner Award , Organization of American Historians for Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America ,Theodore Saloutos Book Award, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, 2004
Littleton-Griswold Prize, the American Historical Association , 2004
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard, 2003
NYU Law School, 2000
Social Science Research Council, 1999
Publications
Articles
"Birthright citizenship and the alien citizen." Fordham Law Review (2006): 2521+ online .
" 'A Slight Knowledge of the Barbarian Language': Chinese Interpreters in Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century America." Journal of American Ethnic History 30.2 (2011): 5–32. online
The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America Princeton University Press, 2012)."Chinese gold miners and the “Chinese question” in nineteenth-century California and Victoria." Journal of American History 101.4 (2015): 1082-1105.
The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (WW Norton, 2021) excerpt
References
^ a b c "Department of History - Columbia University: Ngai, Mae" . Columbia.edu . September 14, 2016. Retrieved February 25, 2020 .^ a b
Ngai, Mae (2004). Impossible Subjects . Princeton University Press.
^ Costantini, Peter (January 16, 2019). "Reflects on how a century of immigration law created a crisis" . Foreign Policy In Focus . Retrieved February 26, 2020 . ^ a b "Current Fellows: Mae M. Ngai" . Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Archived from the original on February 22, 2008. Retrieved February 17, 2008 .^ a b
"Mae Ngai" . Columbia University Department of History.
^ "Mae M. Ngai | OAH" . www.oah.org . Retrieved February 26, 2020 .^ "The American Academy of Arts and Sciences Inducts Six Columbia Faculty Members" . Columbia News . Retrieved May 3, 2022 .^ Schuessler, Jennifer (March 16, 2022). "Histories of Travel Segregation and Chinese Migration Win Bancroft Prize" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved March 17, 2022 . ^ Ngai, Mae (December 11, 2023). "Opinion | Ron DeSantis 'Banned China From Buying Land in the State of Florida.' How Did We Get Here?" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved January 25, 2024 .
Sources
Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America Princeton University Press , (2004) ISBN 978-0-691-07471-9 Ronald H. Bayor, ed. (2004). "Race, Nation, and Citizenship in Late Nineteenth Century America" . The Columbia documentary history of race and ethnicity in America . Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-11994-8 Janice A. Radway; Kevin Gaines; Barry Shank; Penny Von Eschen , eds. (2009). "The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race in Immigration Law" . American Studies: An Anthology . John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-1-4051-1351-9 Marc S. Rodriguez, ed. (2004). "Braceros, "Wetbacks", and the National Boundaries of Class" . Repositioning North American migration history: new directions in modern continental migration, citizenship, and community . Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-58046-158-0 The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2010. ISBN 978-0-618-65116-0
External links
International National Academics Other
