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Inaugural Speaker

Evelyn Hu-DeHart
Professor of History and Ethnic Studies
Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America
Brown University

Dr. Hu-DeHart's keynote speech delivered at the
Inauguration of Dr. Mildred García on May 2, 2008.

Evelyn Hu-DeHart often describes herself as a multicultural person who speaks several languages (including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and her native Chinese) and moves easily among several cultures. Her professional life has focused on what Cuban historian Juan Perez de la Riva calls “la historia de la gente sin historia” (the history of people without a history).

Dr. Hu-DeHart is Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She joined Brown from the University of Colorado at Boulder where she was Chair of the Department of Ethnic Studies and Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America. She has also taught at the City University of New York system, New York University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Arizona and University of Michigan, as well as lectured at universities and research institutes in Mexico, Peru, Cuba, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China.

Hu-DeHart was born in China and immigrated to the United States with her parents when she was 12. As an undergraduate at Stanford University she studied in Brazil on an exchange program. She became fascinated with Latin America and that interest eventually led to a Ph.D. in Latin American history from the University of Texas at Austin.

Hu-DeHart is an internationally recognized scholar and winner of numerous honors and awards, including two Fulbright grants (to Brazil and Peru) and a three-year Kellogg National Leadership Award. She is the author of three books on the Yaqui Indians of northern Mexico and Arizona and numerous articles on Asian American and Native American history. Her current research interest is on the Asian diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Hu-DeHart’s professional activities include many lectures and consultancies on issues of diversity and multiculturalism, including Latin American and Caribbean history; Asian American history and the Asian diaspora; race, ethnic, and gender relations and issues; multicultural education and the politics of multiculturalism; ethnic studies and curriculum reform; and refugee and immigration issues. Hu-DeHart has testified before the U.S Commission on Civil Rights, served as a panelist on national teleconferences about race and higher education, and appeared on the McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, among other television and radio programs. She is a founder of the Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Institute.

A graduate of Stanford University (B.A., political science with honors, 1968), Hu-DeHart earned her Ph.D. in history at the University of Texas–Austin in 1976, specializing in the history of Latin America, and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Notre Dame in 2003.