Born in Missouri, Madeline Y. Hsu grew up traveling between Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Arkansas. She is Professor of History and former director of the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction (2016), Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (2000) and The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (2015). She also coedited, with Maddalena Marinari and Maria Cristina Garcia, A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: U.S. Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965 (2019), and edited Chinese American Transnational Politics (2010), which features articles by the pioneering Chinese American historian Him Mark Lai. She is the lead scholar for the website Teach Immigration History which is co-sponsored by the Immigration and Ethnic History and the NEH's EdSitement program. Her ongoing research projects explore ethnic food and entrepreneurship, the entwining of U.S. foreign relations with immigration law and racial ideologies, contemporary Taiwanese history, and Cold War migrations and imperial projects.
America's economic competitiveness draws upon the tremendous appeal of the United States as a place to study, work, and live. These conditions have emerged since World War II, in parallel with the great diversification of U.S. society and culture. This lecture explores the historical intersections between the growth of international education programs, scientific and technological innovation, and the adaption of immigration laws to facilitate these transformations.