Yuri Doolan
Yuri Doolan was born in an Air Force base to an American father and Korean mother who met in Korea during the 1980s. Yuri spent his early childhood growing up in Korea but remembers the confusion surrounding the separation of his parents. He eventually ended up in Ohio with his now single immigrant mother raising him and his brother, with little to be seen of his father. Yuri shares how he got into Asian American history by working his way backward and filling in the holes of his parents’ past and explains the personal motivations behind his academic career.
Dr. Yuri Doolan received his Ph.D. at Northwestern University and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Brandeis University.
His current book project titled, _The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans from Camptowns to America_ tells the powerful story of how Americans created and used the concept of the “Amerasian” to remove thousands of mixed race children from U.S.-occupied South Korea to adoptive American homes during the 1950s and 1960s.