This is a public lecture to celebrate the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month & reflect on anti-Asian racism.

MassArt Hosts an OAH (Organization of American Historians) Distinguished Lecture on Asian America on May 3, 2022—Free and Open to Public

The Massachusetts College of Art and Design will host a public lecture on Asian America to both celebrate the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and reflect on the Asian American experience and anti-Asian racism during the pandemic. The event is also an OAH Distinguished Lecture and will take place via Zoom on Tuesday, May 3 at 7 pm.

The event will be virtual and free to the public via the following Zoom link (Meeting ID: 836 3620 5289).

The event features historian Erika Lee, whose keynote speech is titled “Reckoning with America’s History of Anti-Asian Violence.” Erika Lee is President-Elect of the Organization of American Historians and a Regents Professor, Distinguished McKnight University Professor, the Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History, and Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota. The granddaughter of Chinese immigrants, Lee was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and testified before Congress in its historic hearings on anti-Asian discrimination and violence. She is the author of four award-winning books including The Making of Asian America (2015) and America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in America (2019), which won the American Book Award and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, as well as other honors. Named to many best books lists and identified as an essential book illuminating the Trump era and the 2020 elections, it was recently re-published with a new epilogue on xenophobia and racism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Making of Asian America was also recently republished with a new postscript about the latest campaigns against Asian Americans. Lee directs three major digital humanities projects: Immigrant Stories, #ImmigrationSyllabus, and Immigrants in COVID America and also regularly appears in the media, including featured appearances in the PBS film series “Asian Americans,” the History Channel’s “America: The Promised Land,” and interviews with CNN, PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio, the BBC, the New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, and many podcasts. Her opinion pieces have been published in the Washington Post, Time, the New York Daily News, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times.

After the keynote speech, Professor Lee will have a brief conversation with two other distinguished guests: Prof. Richard Chu, Five-College Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Massachusetts Asian American and Pacific Islander Commissioner, and Prof. Lyssa Palu-ay, Dean of the Office of Justice, Equity, and Transformation at MassArt. There will also be a Q/A session at the end for the audience to ask questions.

For more information, please contact Lisong Liu via [email protected].

About MassArt: Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt) is one of the top colleges of its kind in the United States. Founded in 1873, MassArt has a legacy of leadership as the only freestanding public college of art and design in the country and the nation’s first art school to grant a degree. More info is available at https://massart.edu/, or visit our campus at 621 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115.

Registration

Time: 6:00 PM — 7:30 PM EST

Free!