Erika Lee will present "Asian Americas: Transnational and Global Histories of Asian Immigration and the Making of the Americas" on Thursday, May 3 from 12 - 2 p.m. in the Multicultural Center in the Ohio Union. 2015 will mark the 450th anniversary of the beginning of the Manilla galleon trade that brought Asian goods and peoples to the Americas for the first time. It will also mark the 50th anniversary of the United States' 1965 Immigration Act, which inaugurated the latest migrations from Asia.

Lee will explore the rich and interconnected histories of Asian immigration to the Americas from the time of Columbus to the present. She will highlight how Asian migrations and communities were central to the making of the Americas, from the establishment of trans-Pacific global trade routes and participation in the era of global mass migration and the transition from slavery to freedom during the nineteenth century, to their roles as subjects and targets of anti-Asian racism and new systems of border and population control in both war and peace times and the new embodiment of contemporary migrations and communities in the age of globalization.

Lee's presentation is sponsored by the Ohio State Asian American Studies Program, the Race, Ethnicity and Nation Constellation in the Department of History, the Multicultural Center, the Division of Arts and Humanities, the East Asian Studies Center, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective (DISCO) Graduate Caucus.

For more information about Lee's discussion, including access to referenced book chapters, please visit the Asian American Studies page.