Henry Yu

Prof. Henry Yu was born and raised in British Columbia, having lived in Vancouver, Victoria, and Hope, B.C. He received his BA in Honours History from UBC and an MA and PhD in History from Princeton University. After teaching at UCLA for a decade, Yu returned to UBC to help build new programs focused on the trans-Pacific connections between North America, Asia, and the Pacific. Between 2010-2012, he was the Project Lead for the “Chinese Canadian Stories” project (chinesecanadian.ubc.ca) involving UBC, SFU, and a wide spectrum of over 29 community organizations across Canada. He was the Co-Chair of the City of Vancouver’s project, “Dialogues between First Nations, Urban Aboriginal, and Immigrant Communities” (http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/dialoguesproject) in 2010-2013, and the Co-Chair of the Anniversaries of Change Steering Committee in 2007-2008. He received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his community service. Currently, he is the Principal of St. John's College, UBC, and for the past eight years has been the Director of INSTRCC (the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies), which is part of the new Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program in the Faculty of Arts at UBC.
Yu is working on a trio of book projects that each aim to provide new perspectives on global history and migration history--1) "Pacific Canada," which explores the history of Canada as an engagement between trans-Pacific migrants, trans-Atlantic migrants, and First Nations and aboriginal peoples, 2) "The Cantonese Pacific," which looks at the legacies of three centuries of Cantonese migrants on the societies, cultures, and cuisines of Southeast Asia and the Pacific world, and 3) "How Tiger Woods Lost His Stripes," which examines the fascination with interracial sex and intimacy.
In 2016-2017 Prof. Yu is on Sabbatical Leave and is the Stanley Kelley, Jr. Visiting Teaching Professor in Asian American Studies at Princeton University
Supervisors: Daniel T. Rodgers
Address: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada