Ellen Wu

• Assistant Professor, Department of History
• Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies Program

Education

• B.A., B.S. at Indiana University, 1996
• M.A. at University of California, Los Angeles, 1998
• Ph.D. at University of Chicago, 2006

Contact Information

BH 826

(812)-855-6344

Background

The questions that I am currently exploring in my work deal with issues of race, immigration, citizenship, and nation through the lens of Asian American history.  My book manuscript-in-progress, The Origins of the Model Minority: Race and Asian American Citizenship in the Mid-Twentieth Century, traces the evolution of Asians in the United States from “aliens ineligible to citizenship” to “model minorities” in the post-World War II era and assesses the consequences of this transformation for the American racial order. Looking ahead, my next project will consider the significance of Chinatowns in locations throughout the Pacific World.

My teaching areas complement my research interests. As a core faculty member of the emerging Asian American Studies program at IU, I offer a range of courses that examine the political, social, and cultural history of Asian Americans and how these experiences can offer insight into broader issues of race, citizenship, migration, and transnationalism. I also teach classes on Cold War America and immigration.

Selected Awards

• Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-2011
• The University of Texas at Austin Institute for Historical Studies Fellowship, 2010
• Indiana Univeristy New Frontiers in the Arts & Humanities Grant, 2010
• Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Samuel Flagg Bemis Research Grant, 2007
• The University of Chicago Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture Dissertaion Fellowship 2003-2004
• Organization of American Historians Horace Samuel & Marion Galbraith Merrill Travel Grant in Twentieth-Century American Political Hisotry, 2003
• The University of Chicago Century Fellowship, 1999-2003

Research Interests

• Asian American History
• Postwar American society, culture, and politics
• Citizenship
• Migration
• Transnationalism

Courses Recently Taught

• Asian American History
• Hawai’i and the United States
• America in the 1950s
• The United States and the Pacific Wars: Social and Cultural Consequences
• Immigration, Race, and Nation in Modern America

Publication Highlights

“‘America’s Chinese’: Anti-Communism, Citizenship, and Cultural Diplomacy During the Cold War,” Pacific Historical Review (August 2008): 319-422

 “Chinese American Transnationalism Aboard the ‘Love Boat’: The Overseas Chinese Youth Language Training and Study Tour to the Republic of China,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives, 2005.

With Nakanishi, Don T. Distinguished Asian American Political and Government Leaders. Phoenix, AZ: Greenwood Press, 2002.