Professor Mae Ngai received Lifetime Achievement awards from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and the Association of Asian American Studies at annual conferences held in April.

On April 23 Professor Mae Ngai delivered the Allison Davis lecture at the University of Chicago, “Once we were somebodies: refugees, the human, and history.”

CSER Prof. Sayantani DasGupta was recently spotlighted in a Columbia Spectator article called “‘Stories are good medicine’: Sayantani DasGupta on narrative medicine and her upcoming novel, ‘Theft of the Ruby Lotus’” about her new book, Theft of the Ruby Lotus. Read it here!

Prof. Lori Flores was recently interviewed on two separate radio stations about the revelations concerning farmworker leader/icon Cesar Chavez’s abuse of women and children. Listen to the KCBS San Francisco segment here and the KCRW Los Angeles segment here.

CSER’s Mae Ngai published a piece in The Economist, “America is a nation of immigrants with a history of exclusion,” as part of its series America at 250. Read it here!

CSER Professor Lori Flores’s recent book Awaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19 (UNC Press, 2025) received an Honorable Mention from the Latin American Studies Association’s Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History! Read the announcement here.

Professor Mae Ngai has been recognized with a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Asian American Studies. View the announcement here!

CSER professor and accomplished journalist Ed Morales recently published a piece in The New York Times on the trombonist, singer, bandleader, composer and producer Willie Colón. Read it here!

CSER Writer-in-Residence was chosen as one of seven finalists for the inaugural Conjunctions Residency, Writers Helping Writers! Read the full announcement here.

CSER’s Mae Ngai was recently interviewed on Background Briefing abut immigration, on one year anniversary of the second Trump administration. Listen to it here.

CSER’s Mae Ngai was recently featured in a segment on Democracy Now! speaking about denaturalization and birthright citizenship. Watch it here!

Professor Mae Ngai was chosen as a Margaret Olivia Sage Scholar by the Russell Sage Foundation for 2026-2027. MOS scholars are nominated and selected by the foundation’s board of trustees on the basis of “outstanding career accomplishments.”

Professor Mae Ngai was named an honorary fellow of the American Society for Legal History, the  highest honor the Society confers,  which recognizes distinguished historians whose scholarship has shaped the broad discipline of legal history and influenced the work of others, at its annual meeting in Detroit in November 15.

CSER’s Shana Redmond received a Special Recognition Award from the ASCAP Foundation for the liner notes she authored for the Grammy-nominated album Paul Robeson–Voice of Freedom: His Complete Columbia, RCA, HMV, and Victor Recordings (Sony Classical, 2024)! The liner notes received the Paul Williams “Loved the Liner Notes” Award at the 56th annual ASCAP Foundation Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards. Read the full announcement here.

CSER’s Encuent(r)os event featuring Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes was featured in a write-up in the Columbia Spectator! The event was organized by CSER prof. Angie Cruz on behalf of CSER, Aster(ix) Journal, and Casa Hispanica.

CSER’s Mae Ngai recently published a piece in The New York Review of Books titled, “The End of Asylum.” The second Trump administration has collapsed the distinction between political and economic migrants. Did it make sense to separate them to begin with?

CSER’s Writer-in-Residence, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, recently judged the 8th annual New American Voices Award hosted by Fall for the Book. Read the full announcement here!

As part of CSER’s new programming series, Encuent(r)os, the writer, director, and performer Naima Ramos Chapman facilitated a writing workshop for the CSER community. After the workshop, students of Encuent(r)os curator Angie Cruz (Julissa Hernandez Alejandre and Sophia Amalia Medina, pictured) interviewed Ramos Chapman at Casa Hispánica about their work. Encuent(r)os explores the diversity of Latinidad and Latinx Studies by putting scholars and artists into conversation.

CSER’s Mae Ngai was recently quoted in an article in Huff Post about denaturalization. Read it here.

The film and TV rights to CSER Prof. Mae Ngai’s 2010 book The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America have been acquired by Neurosphere Entertainment, which plans to develop the book into a historical drama. The Lucky Ones uncovers the story of the Tape family in post-gold rush, racially explosive San Francisco. Read the full announcement here.