JOINED THE DEPARTMENT

2024

BIO

Donna Doan Anderson (she/her) is the Mellon Research Assistant Professor in U.S. Law and Race in the Department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received her Ph.D. in U.S. History with an emphasis on Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She previously served as the assistant editor for the Journal of Asian American Studies, the graduate student representative for the Association of Asian American Studies’ History Section, and as a graduate student researcher for UCSB’s ÉXITO program. Before pursuing her graduate degree, she held a career as a history teacher at Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Her research examines the intersections of land policy and immigration within rural Asian American communities in the United States during the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries. Her research brings her to several Midwestern and Intermountain states and she is grateful to be affiliated with the Huntington Library, Charles Redd Center for Western Studies (BYU), Digital Ethnic Studies Research Institute (University of Nebraska), and the Immigration History Research Center Archives (University of Minnesota). Her published works can be found in the Journal of Asian American Studies, American Studies journal, and the Middle West Review (forthcoming), while a co-authored chapter examining remittances and urban development in Vietnam can be found in Governing Cities in the 21st Century: Asian Perspectives (Routledge, 2020). She also won the Midwestern History Association’s Dorothy Schwieder Prize for Best Article on Midwestern History for her article, “Acceptance for Admission: Administrations of Relocation and the Midwestern University” (American Studies, 2023). Presently, she is transitioning her dissertation, “America is in the Heartland: Land Policy, Immigration, and Rural Asian America, 1860-1950,” into a book manuscript.

CV

ARTICLES & CHAPTERS

• Anderson, Donna Doan, “Acceptance for Admission: Administrations of Relocation and the Midwestern University,” American Studies Special Issue “Unsettling Global Midwests” Vol. 62, Issue 3 (Fall 2023). Winner of the Midwestern History Association’s Dorothy Schweider Prize for Best Article on Midwestern History in 2023
• Anderson, Donna Doan. “‘More Than We Imagined’: The Journal of Asian American Studies Through the Years, 1997-Present,” Journal of Asian American Studies, Vol. 26, No.1 (2023).
• Vo, Hung and Donna Doan Anderson. “Building the City from Abroad: Viet Kieu and the Rights to Saigon.” In Governing Cities in the 21st Century: Asian Perspectives. Routledge, 2020.

SELECTED GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS

• Graduate Student Dissertation Support Award, University of California Humanities Research Initiative (UCHRI), 2023
• Immigration History Research Center Archives Grant-in-Aid Award, University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, 2022
• The Cheng Fellowship in History of Asian American Experience in the United States, The Huntington Library, 2022
• Charles Redd Fellowship in Western American Studies, Charles Redd Center in Western American Studies, Brigham Young University, 2021, 2022
• Engaging Humanities Predoctoral Fellowship, Center for Engaging Humanities, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2021
• New Storytellers Digital Ethnic Studies Research Institute, Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2021

SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS

• Dorothy Schweider Prize for Best Article on Midwestern History, Midwestern History Association (MHA), 2023
• Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, UCSB Faculty Academic Senate, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2021
• Dixon-Levy Service Award, Graduate Student Association (GSA), University of California, Santa Barbara, 2019

SELECTED CONFERENCES AND INVITED TALKS

• (Scheduled) “What Comes Next?: Emerging Scholars and the Future of Midwestern History,” Roundtable participant, Organization of American Historians, April 2025.
• (Scheduled) “Understanding the Midwest through the Asian American Critique,” Paper presentation for the Beyond East of the West and North of the South: Roundtable on New Directions in Midwestern History panel, Western Historical Association, October 2024.
• “Reframing the Middle: New Perspectives in Asian American Midwest Studies,” Roundtable organizer and presenter, Association for Asian American Studies, April 2024.
• “Making Sense and Finding Self: New Questions, Approaches, and Asian American Communities of the Midwest,” Paper presentation and panel organizer, Organization of American Historians, April 2024. Endorsed by OAH-JAAS Collaborative Committee, OAH Committee on the Status of ALANA Historians and ALANA Histories, IEHS, and the Midwestern History Association. Selected by OAH Program Committee for the virtual program.
• “Addressing the Japanese “Problem”: Liberalism, “Good Middlewestern Colleges,” and Japanese American Student Resettlement, 1942–45,” Paper presentation and panel organizer, Histories of the ‘Other’ Midwest: Considering Race and Space in the 19th and 20th Century, American Historical Association, January 2024.
• “Unsettling Global Midwests,” Roundtable Participant, American Studies Association, November 2023.
• “Attached but Not Owned: The Nikkei Tenant Farmer on the High Plains,” Paper presentation for the Regional Influences on Land and Labor: From the Midwest to the West in the 19th-century panel, Western Historical Association, October 2023.
• “JAAS Plenary: Journal of Asian American Studies at 25: Critical Reflections on Past, Present, and Future, Association for Asian American Studies,” Chair and discussant, April 2023.
• “Asian American Studies in Praxis: Advocacy, Activism, and Establishing Student-Centric Academic Spaces,” Panel presentation for Engaging Teaching Symposium, University of California, Santa Barbara, October 2022.
• “The Great Third Coast: How Teaching in the Midwest and South Challenges Asian American Studies,” Chair and discussant, Association for Asian American Studies, April 2022.

RESEARCH INTEREST AND EXPERIENCE

Asian American History;
Asian American Studies;
Midwestern Studies;
Immigration History;
World History