I have especially studied and worked with community organizations to address the problem of anti-Asian violence for over three decades. My original research and insights will appear in my forthcoming book, Perilous: How America Erased the Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism and Why We Must Break the Silence (Beacon Press, 2025).

I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (BA, History; Minor, Afro-American Studies) and UCLA (MA, Asian American Studies; MA/PhD History). I have held tenured faculty or visiting scholar positions at the University of Michigan, Harvard University, University of Washington Bothell, TCU, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. I also served as President and Executive Director of the American Studies Association. I am an active public scholar with a history of urban community organizing, especially among Black and Asian Americans in Detroit and Los Angeles and have served as a board member and volunteer for numerous community and nonprofit organizations. I am an accomplished public speaker, experienced planner of major conferences and programs, and award-winning author of works for scholarly and general audiences.

I have written or co-written four books: The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles (2008)—recipient of the Beveridge Award from the American Historical Association and History Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies; The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, co-authored with Grace Lee Boggs (2011); Exiled to Motown: A History of Japanese Americans in Detroit, co-authored with the Detroit JACL History Project Committee (2015); and The Fifty-Year Rebellion: How the U.S. Political Crisis Began in Detroit (2017). I am represented by Elise Capron of the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.

I have provided expert commentary for print and electronic media, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and dozens of national and regional outlets. I have been interviewed for documentary films andinvited to speak at over one hundred colleges and universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania, and UCLA, as well as major museums (Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Japanese American National Museum, Detroit Museum of African American History), libraries, historical societies, bookstores, churches, and civil rights organizations.

I use he/they pronouns. (Photo credit: M. X. Turner)