I’m a writer and professor who loves reading and writing. I finished my fourth book: America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the U.S., which will be published by Basic Books/Hachette on November 26, 2019.

I’m a historian who still does history the old-fashioned way by doing research in the archives. I get excited finding dusty documents, but I’m also fully immersed in the 21st century as a #twitterstorian who is helping to build a digital archive of immigrant digital stories and provide historical commentary to the news.

I write about immigrants, Asian Americans, and race as a way to understand America in the past and present. I write history “from the bottom up,” focusing on everyday people and their role in American life. I fervently believe that there has never been a more important time for strong, fact-based, and accessible history and journalism. In a society that seemingly accepts the erasure and misinterpretation of history as well as the manipulation and denial of facts, we need to understand how we got to where we are today, what is at stake, and what we can do to create change.

I wrote America for Americans in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential elections. My students, many of whom are first-generation immigrants and refugees, kept asking "How could we have elected a president who called Mexicans 'rapists' and 'criminals' and called for a 'complete and total shutdown of Muslims to the US'?" And "how could this have happened today, after two terms of our first African American president?"

I didn't have the answers. And none of the books on my shelves did either. So I decided to write my own. America for Americans is a sobering history. It was hard to write (and it literally made me sick to do so!) But I think it is a necessary wake up call for all of us who seek to live in a humane and welcoming world. I hope that you will enjoy it!