Dr. Lisa Mar
Toronto 43° 39' 12.53" N, 79° 23' 2.16" W Academic and Education Academia/Research Religion Asian Heritage Month Person
Richard Charles Lee Chair in Chinese Canadian Studies
Associate Professor Lisa Mar, Department of History, University of Toronto, Toronto Canada
lisa.mar@utoronto.ca
Associate Professor Ph.D., Toronto, 2002 Immigration, Asian American, U.S. & Canada, 20th century
Dr. Lisa Rose Mar teaches about immigrants and Asian Americans, in the past and present. Her research interests are in immigration, politics, and culture. She often employs transpacific and transnational perspectives that bring together the United States, China, and Canada.
Research Interests
Dr. Mar is the author of the book, Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada's Exclusion Era, 1885-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2010). Brokering Belonging traces several generations of Chinese "brokers," ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. Before World War II, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Dr. Mar's study of Chinatown leaders shows how politics helped establish North America's first major group of illegal immigrants. Drawing on new Chinese language evidence, her dramatic account of political power struggles over representing Chinese Canadians offers a transnational immigrant view of history, centered in a Pacific World that joins Canada, the United States, China, and the British Empire.
Dr. Mar is currently working on two book projects related to Chinese immigrants: a study of Second World War experiences, and a history of Chinese American religious life. Dr. Mar has published articles relating to transpacific Chinese migration history, domestic violence in immigrant contexts, comparative U.S.-Canadian history, and immigrant family life. She is also involved in a digital initiative to document Maryland's immigrant history. She has held several prestigious fellowships, among them an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship and The Queen's Fellowship of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
Teaching Interests Dr. Lisa Rose Mar teaches about immigrants and Asian Americans, in the past and present. Her research interests are in immigration, politics, and culture. She often employs transpacific and transnational perspectives that bring together the United States, China, and Canada.
Selected Publications
Brokering Belonging: Chinese in Canada's Exclusion Era, 1885-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)
"Beyond Being Others: Chinese Canadians as National History," BC Studies (Winter/Spring 2007/2008): 13–34.
"Asian Canada: An ‘Alternate Asian America'?" in Brian Niiya, Henry Yu, and Franklin Odo, Eds., Asian Pacific American History Collective Website, published on-line with support from the Ford Foundation at http://www.apachp.org, Spring, 2005.
"The Tale of Lin Tee: Madness, Family Violence and Lindsay's Anti-Chinese Riot of 1919" in Franca Iacovetta, Frances Swyripa and Marlene Epp , Eds., Sisters or Strangers?: Immigrant Women, Minority Women and the Racialized Other, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, 108-129.
"Remember Us: A Search for Chinese Roots in Canada," published in Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1993 . San Francisco, California: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1993, 1-24.