Jane Hong

Biography

Jane Hong is the author of Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) and an associate professor of history at Occidental College. She serves on the managing board of the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI), the Board of Directors of the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), and the Gilder-Lehrman Scholarly Advisory Board. Hong appears in two episodes of the Peabody Award-winning PBS docuseries, Asian Americans (2020). An active public speaker, Hong has shared her expertise with the Brookings Institution, Uber, and NPR’s The Takeaway, in addition to academic and faith-based venues. Hong is committed to bridging academic and public history. Her work in this area includes leading K-12 teacher seminars for the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History, consulting for television programs including Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and American Idol, and penning op-eds for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. In Fall 2024, Hong was one of 28 U.S. historians appointed to the Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship Program.

Academic biography

Research topics

Immigration