Ian Shin

I am a social and cultural historian of the United States. My research and teaching focus on Asian American history and on the history of the U.S. in the Pacific World between 1850 and 1950. I come to this work as a first-generation American who was born in Hong Kong, grew up in California, and spent the past decade and a half on the East Coast. My work is guided not only by my training in historical methods but also by my dedication to critical race and ethnic studies.

I am currently working on several projects. My book manuscript—entitled Imperial Stewards: Chinese Art and the Cultural Origins of America's Pacific Century—examines Chinese art collecting in the U.S. in the early 20th century as a contested process of knowledge production that bolstered ideas of American exceptionalism, even while it relied on transpacific circuits of labor and expertise. My recent publications include an article in Amerasia Journal about the Boy Scout movement in New York’s Chinatown before World War II, and a book chapter on the role of colleges and universities in U.S.-China relations and Asian immigration in the long 19th century that uses Amherst College as a case study. 

In addition to my book project, I am also researching the forgotten history of the interracial adoption of white children by Chinese parents during the Exclusion Era, as well as the emergence of Asian American ethnoburbs in the Metro Detroit area between 1980 and the present.

Outside of my research and teaching, I co-host a podcast that interviews authors of new books in Asian American studies.