Dr. Erika Lee

Title: Director of the Immigration History Research Center and Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair in Immigration History, University of Minnesota

Lee, who teaches American history, is one of the nation’s leading immigration and Asian American historians. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and received a master’s and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Lee authored the award-winning book, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. Her new book, The Making of Asian America: A History, was published in 2015. Lee received the Immigrant Heritage Award from the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation in 2015.