Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share A Conversation with Beth Lew-Williams, Award-Winning Professor and Director of Asian American Studies at Princeton University, and Author of John Doe Chinaman
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
A Conversation with Beth Lew-Williams, Award-Winning Professor and Director of Asian American Studies at Princeton University, and Author of John Doe Chinaman
Welcome to Season 5, Episode 41! Today's guest is award-winning author Beth Lew-Williams. She's a Professor of History and the Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She's best known for her work on migration, violence, and ethnic studies. She's also a 2025 winner of the Dan David Prize that honors innovative research on the human past. It's the largest history prize in the world, and only nine people were awarded it in 2025!
Her latest book is John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law is published by Harvard University Press and was released on September 16 of this year (so it's available now)! We love the angle she takes by examining the laws, policies, and various regulations created by Federal, State, and Local leaders that impacted the Chinese in America. She uncovered thousands of laws and policies across the nation that targeted Chinese migrants. She also tells the stories of the Chinese Americans who refused to accept a conditional place in U.S. life.
Lew-Williams previous book was The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America published in 2018 (also by Harvard University Press). In it, she maps the tangled relationships between local racial violence, federal immigration policy, and U.S. imperial ambitions in Asia. The Chinese Must Go won the Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Ellis W. Halley Prize from the Organization of American Historians.
John Doe Chinaman isn't just for academia. It's for all those who are interested in reading about a part of America that hasn't been talked about as much. So it's great for all!
If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at [email protected].
View all episodes
By Gen and Ted Lai
4.9
8888 ratings
Welcome to Season 5, Episode 41! Today's guest is award-winning author Beth Lew-Williams. She's a Professor of History and the Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She's best known for her work on migration, violence, and ethnic studies. She's also a 2025 winner of the Dan David Prize that honors innovative research on the human past. It's the largest history prize in the world, and only nine people were awarded it in 2025!
Her latest book is John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law is published by Harvard University Press and was released on September 16 of this year (so it's available now)! We love the angle she takes by examining the laws, policies, and various regulations created by Federal, State, and Local leaders that impacted the Chinese in America. She uncovered thousands of laws and policies across the nation that targeted Chinese migrants. She also tells the stories of the Chinese Americans who refused to accept a conditional place in U.S. life.
Lew-Williams previous book was The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America published in 2018 (also by Harvard University Press). In it, she maps the tangled relationships between local racial violence, federal immigration policy, and U.S. imperial ambitions in Asia. The Chinese Must Go won the Ray Allen Billington Prize and the Ellis W. Halley Prize from the Organization of American Historians.
John Doe Chinaman isn't just for academia. It's for all those who are interested in reading about a part of America that hasn't been talked about as much. So it's great for all!
If you like what we do, please share, follow, and like us in your podcast directory of choice or on Instagram @AAHistory101. For previous episodes and resources, please visit our site at https://asianamericanhistory101.libsyn.com or our links at http://castpie.com/AAHistory101. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, email us at [email protected].
More shows like Asian American History 101
View all
This American Life
91,032 Listeners
Stuff You Should Know
78,332 Listeners
Fresh Air
38,494 Listeners
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
38,777 Listeners
The NPR Politics Podcast
25,876 Listeners
Pop Culture Happy Hour
11,522 Listeners
The Splendid Table: Conversations & Recipes For Curious Cooks & Eaters
3,082 Listeners
Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street Radio
3,001 Listeners
The Daily
112,942 Listeners
Throughline
16,231 Listeners
The Journal.
6,065 Listeners
HISTORY This Week
4,182 Listeners
Everything Everywhere Daily
2,102 Listeners
The Ezra Klein Show
16,098 Listeners
What Now? with Trevor Noah
4,244 Listeners