Him Mark Lai: Autobiography of a Chinese American Historian

"The Chinese in America are a major Asian group with a long history in this country. Their experiences have played an important role in the development of America. At the same time, academicians need to look at the larger picture and study Chinese Americans as part of U.S. history, Chinese history, and world history." - Him Mark Lai, Historian
In his own words, Him Mark Lai (1925-2009), the renowned Dean of Chinese American History, shares with us the moving story of his own life, beginning with his childhood in San Francisco Chinatown to his career as an engineer to historian and scholar. Through chronicling the saga of his own family, he also provides an intimate portrait of a Chinese American immigrant family and community developments from the Great Depression of the 1930s through the McCarthy era of the 1950s, through the Asian American Studies Movement of the 1970s, to the present.
The UCLA Asian American Studies Center in conjunction with the Chinese Historical Society of America has just released this remarkable 180-page volume, illustrated with rare family portraits, maps, and research materials for students, scholars, and those interested in Asian American, Chinese American, and overseas Chinese history and life. The volume is edited by historian Judy Yung, with writers Ruthanne Lum McCunn and Russell C. Leong, with a foreword by Prof. John Kuo Wei Tchen.
Him Mark Lai's voice, at once measured and compelling, sheds light on broader U.S.-China relations, the changing economic status of Chinese Americans, and the ways in which domestic and international politics have shaped their lives and thrust Chinese Americans onto the larger world stage.
In the book, Lai states: "Because the Chinese American community has had a predominately immigrant population during practically all of its history, most documentation was necessarily in Chinese; hence, Chinese-language materials are essential for in-depth investigations of many facets of the Chinese American historical experience, especially those connected with the community's internal dynamics." Lai's rescue, collecting, cataloguing, preservation and sharing of historical sources in both Chinese and English opened the field of Chinese American history to scholars and researchers on both sides of the Pacific. Today, historians and writers continue to rely and to draw upon Him Mark Lai's insights and scholarship. Him Mark Lai: Autobiography of a Chinese American Historian contains illustrated chapters on the Maak immigrant lineage, sojourn in Singapore, marriage and family, taking root in America, the public Chinese and American schools, Mun Ching and politics, marriage, the development of Chinese American consciousness, researching Chinese American history, and transpacific linkages, together with appendices, family and archival photographs, maps, and a comprehensive bibliography and online resources on the work of Him Mark Lai.