Rate My Professor Chiou-Ling Yeh

Chiou-Ling Yeh is Professor Emerita in the Department of History at San Diego State University, having served on the faculty from 2002 to 2025. She earned her Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Irvine in 2001. As part of the Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP), she teaches select courses during Spring semesters from 2027 to 2031. Yeh teaches U.S. history, racial and ethnic history, and Asian American history. Her fields include American history, race and ethnicity, and she is listed under United States and the World specializations. She also holds an affiliation with the Asian and Pacific Studies program at SDSU. Yeh contributes to graduate comprehensive exams in race, ethnicity, Asian Americans, and gender.

Yeh's research centers on Chinese American history, cultural festivals, and ethnic experiences in the United States. Her major publication is the book Making an American Festival: Chinese New Year in San Francisco's Chinatown, published by University of California Press in 2008. Other publications include “Images of Equality and Freedom: the Representation of Chinese American Men, America Today Magazine, and the Cultural Cold War in Asia,” published in the Journal of American Studies, and “Anti-American Expressions: the 1957 Incident and Chinese in the Philippines, Thailand, and Hong Kong,” in the Journal of East Asian and American Studies. In 2025, she was awarded a $500 College of Arts and Letters Microgrant for her project “‘Bad Chinese Lads Become Good Men’: Orientalism, Christian Manliness, and the Chung Mei Home for Chinese Boys, 1923-1954.” Yeh received the Outstanding Faculty Member award from the College of Arts and Letters in 2008 and 2017. She was honored with a 20-year milestone service award in 2022. Additionally, she has served as an associate editor for the History Department newsletter. Her scholarship illuminates the intersections of culture, race, and immigration in American history, contributing to broader understandings of ethnic communities and public celebrations.