Biography
Min Zhou is Professor of Sociology & Asian American Studies, Walter and Shirley Wang Endowed Chair in U.S.-China Relations & Communications, and Director of the UCLA Asia Pacific Center. She was the inaugural chair of UCLA Asian American Studies Department (2001-05). Between 2013 and 2016, she took a leave of absence to be the Tan Lark Sye Chair Professor, Head of Sociology Division, and Director of the Chinese Heritage Centre, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She also held the prestigious Chang Jiang Scholar Chair Professorship at Sun Yat-sen University, China (2009-2012). She currently holds visiting Professorships in several major universities in China, including Sun Yat-sen University, Zhejiang University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Central China Normal University, and Huazhong Agricultural University. Zhou is an internationally renowned scholar in the areas of migration and development, race and ethnicity, entrepreneurship, refugee studies, Asian diasporas, and the sociology of Asia and Asian America.
She has published 17 books and more than 190 journal articles and book chapters. She is the author of Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave (1992), Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation (2009), and The Accidental Sociologist in Asian American Studies (2011); co-author of Growing up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States(with Bankston, 1998), The Asian American Achievement Paradox (with Lee, 2015), and The Rise of the New Second Generation (with Bankston, 2016); editor of Contemporary Chinese Diasporas (2007), and co-editor of Asian American Youth (with Lee, 2004) and Contemporary Asian America (with Gatewood, 1st ed. 2000, 2nd ed. 2007; with Ocampo, 3rd ed. 2016).
Areas of Interest
Migration and development, the new second generation, race and ethnicity, entrepreneurship, refugee studies, Asian diasporas, and the sociology of Asia and Asian America
Education
Ph. D., State University of New York, Albany, 1989
Certificate of Graduate Study, State University of New York, Albany, 1988
M.A., State University of New York, Albany, 1985
B.A., Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, China, 1982
Research Interests
International Migration, Race/Ethnic/Minority Relations, Asia/Asian America, Community and Urban SociologyPublications
- Beyond Economic Migration: Social, Historical, and Political Factors in US Immigration (with Mahmud). New York University Press, 2022.
- Contemporary Chinese Diasporas. Palgrave Macmillan, ed. 2017.
- “Hyper-Selectivity and the Remaking of Culture: Understanding the Asian American Achievement Paradox”
(with Lee), Asian American Journal of Psychology 8 (1): 7-15. - The Rise of the New Second Generation (with Bankston). Polity, 2016.
- Contemporary Asian America: A Multidisciplinary Reader (with Ocampo). New York University Press, 3rd ed. 2016.
- “Remittances for Collective Consumption and Social Status Compensation: Variations on Transnational Practices among Chinese Migrants” (with Li), International Migration Review. Epub ahead of print Fall 2016. DOI: 10.1111/imre.12268 (2016).
- “Homeland Engagement and Host-Society Integration: A Comparative Study of New Chinese Immigrants in the United States and Singapore” (with Hong Liu) International Journal of Comparative Sociology 57 (2016).
- “Encountering Strangers in an Emerging Global City: Chinese Attitudes toward African Migrants in Guangzhou, China” (with Shabnam Shenasi and Tao Xu), The International Journal of Sociology 46 (2016).
- The Asian American Achievement Paradox (with Lee). Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2015.
- “Transnationalism and Development: Mexican and Chinese Immigrant Organizations in the United States.” Population and Development Review 38 (2): 191-220, 2012 (with Portes).
- The Accidental Sociologist in Asian American Studies. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 2011.
- “Noneconomic Effects of Ethnic Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Chinatown and Koreatown in Los Angeles, USA.” Thunderbird International Business Review 52 (2) 83-96, 2010 (with Cho).
- “How Neighborhoods Matter for Immigrant Children: The Formation of Educational Resources in Chinatown, Koreatown, and Pico Union, Los Angeles.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35 (7): 1153-1179, 2009.
- Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation (Temple University Press, 2009). “Rethinking Residential Assimilation through the Case of Chinese Ethnoburbs in the San Gabriel Valley, California.” Amerasia Journal 34 (3): 55-83, 2008 (with Tseng and Kim).
- “Success Attained, Deterred, and Denied: Divergent Pathways to Social Mobility among the New Second Generation in Los Angeles.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 620: 37-61, 2008 (with Lee, Agius Vallejo, Tafoya-Estrada, and Xiong).
- “The Ethnic System of Supplementary Education: Non-profit and For profit Institutions in Los Angeles’ Chinese Immigrant Community,” pp. 229-251 in Beth Shinn and Hirokazu Yoshikawa, eds., Toward Positive Youth Development: Transforming Schools and Community Programs, New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Awards
Recipient of the 2007 Chiyoko Doris’34 & Toshio Hoshide Distinguished Teaching Prize in Asian American Studies, UCLA Asian American Youth: Culture, Identity, and Ethnicity (with Lee). Winner of the 2006 Outstanding Book Award, Asia and Asian America Section, American Sociological AssociationGrowing up American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States (with Bankston). Winner of the 1999 Thomas and Znaniecki Award, International Migration Section of the ASA; Winner of 2000 Best Book Award, the Mid-South Sociological Association Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave. Honorable Mention of the 1993 Robert E. Park Award, Community of Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association