About the Authors

Erika Lee is an Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota and is the author of At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943.  The grandchild of grandparents who came through both Angel Island and Ellis Island, she grew up in the Bay Area and received her Ph.D. in History at UC Berkeley. She has been on the faculty at the University of Minnesota since 1998. Professor Lee has received several awards for her research, teaching, and outreach. At America's Gates received the 2003 Theodore Saloutos Prize for the best book in migration studies, the 2003 History Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies, and was chosen as a Choice Academic Title for 2004. She is also the author of a number of articles on immigration and Asian American history that have appeared in the Journal of American History, Journal of American Ethnic History, Pacific Historical Quarterly, Journal of Asian American Studies, Amerasia Journal, and in several anthologies. At the University of Minnesota, she has received a number of prestigious professorships and honors, including, most recently, the Fesler Lampert Professorship in the Public Humanities. Professor Lee was also a university-wide finalist for the University of Minnesota Morse-Alumni Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching. From 1997 to 1998, she served on the Executive Board of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation and also helped to lead tours and train docents. In addition to her work on Angel Island, she is also writing another book titled Asian Americas: A Transnational History.
http://www.hist.umn.edu/people/profile.php?UID=erikalee

Judy Yung, Professor Emerita of American Studies at UC Santa Cruz, is the daughter of Chinese immigrants who were detained on Angel Island.  She received her Master’s in Library Science and Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley. She worked as a librarian and journalist before joining the faculty at UC Santa Cruz, where she taught courses in Asian American history, women’s studies, ethnic studies, and oral history. Her publications include Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island (winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award), Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (winner of book awards from the Western History Association, Association for Asian American Studies, and Women’s Heritage Museum), Chinese American Voices: From the Gold Rush to the Present, and most recently, The Adventures of Eddie Fung: Chinatown Kid, Texas Cowboy, Prisoner of War. Professor Yung has also directed exhibits and written two pictorial history books on Chinese American women and San Francisco Chinatown. For the past two decades, she has volunteered her services as a historical consultant to the Chinese Historical Society of America and Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.  She is the recipient of the Association for Asian American Studies’ Lifetime Achievement Award and UC Santa Cruz’s Excellence through Diversity Award and Excellence in Teaching Award.