Andrea Louie

  • Professor of Anthropology

Contact

Research Interests

    Transnational Migration
    Identity
    Race and Ethnicity
    Cultural Heritage Tourism
    China
    Chinese diaspora
    Chinese Americans
    Chinese Transnational Adoption
    Chinese Transnational Students
    Model Minority Myth
    History and Memory

Biographical Info

ANDREA LOUIE has conducted research exploring how ideas constructed around "Chineseness" as a racial and cultural identity have been reworked as transnational processes bring Chinese from different parts of the world into contact with one another.

Her book “Chineseness Across Borders: Re-negotiating Chinese Identities in China and the U.S." (Duke University Press, 2004) won the Association for Asian American Studies Social Sciences book award (March 2006).

Her second book, "How Chinese Are You?: Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture" (NYU Press, 2015) examines the "cultural socialization" and racialization of children adopted from China in the U.S.

She is currently working on a project on Chinese international students, and on a new book project focusing on the multiple narratives surrounding the story of Toy Len Goon, a Chinese immigrant who was selected as U.S. Mother of the Year in 1952.

Dr. Louie teaches courses on Transnational Processes and Identities, China, and Asian Americans. She is the founding director of the Asian Pacific American Studies program at MSU.

Publications

 
  • Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and in the U.S. Duke University Press, 2004.
  • “Pandas, Lions, and Dragons, oh my!: How White Adoptive Parents Construct Chineseness.” In Journal of Asian American Studies. Volume 12, Number 3, October 2009 (285-320).
  •  How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture. New York University Press, 2015.
  • Louie, Andrea and Desiree Baolian Qin. “Car Talk”: Automobility, Neoliberalism, and Chinese International Students in Michigan. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power (Published online February 2, 2018)
  • Louie, Andrea. Reassessing Chinese American Identities: How Adoptees and American Born Chinese (ABCs) Negotiate Chineseness. Journal of Chinese Overseas (In Press).
  • Dept. of Anthropology