Mae M. Ngai is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History at Columbia University. She is a U.S. legal and political historian interested in the histories of immigration, citizenship, nationalism, and the Chinese diaspora. She is author of the award-winning Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004); The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (2010); and The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (2021); and coeditor of Corky Lee’s Asian America: Fifty Year of Photographic Justice (2024).

Considered the “undisputed, unofficial Asian American photographer laureate,” Corky Lee had spent his life documenting Asian American life until his untimely passing in 2021. Indeed, Corky possessed “Ordinary skill, extraordinary will—to practice photographic justice to right the wrongs” as he specified on his many business cards. Through Corky’s pathbreaking photography, new ways of seeing Asian America emerged to meet a growing Asian American political consciousness. Join us for an evening celebrating the recent publication of Corky Lee’s Asian America: Fifty Years of Photographic Justice (2024), a retrospective of his life’s work, with Mae Ngai.

Ngai will be signing books immediately after the talk. Books will be available for purchase at the event.

This event is cosponsored by the American Studies Program, Asian Studies Program, and History Department.

This event is open to the public.