Brian Hayashi, Ph.D., is one of about 10 historians in the United States to win a 2022 summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Hayashi won for his project titled "Yellow Peril: The Rise and Transformation of a Racialist Ideology."
The project includes research and writing two chapters of a book examining U.S. military and congressional views of the 鈥淵ellow Peril鈥� in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It will revisit the origins and evolution of the "Yellow Peril" in American culture, and argue that scholars have misunderstood both, a timely subject to explore given the current state of increasing hate crimes against Asians.
The National Endowment for the Humanities is a federal funding agency that supports research and development work for the humanities as a whole. NEH funding is much more competitive than equivalent funding agenceis for the sciences. In any given year, there are usually 10-15 NEH awards granted within a year for the entire state of Ohio. As such, these awards are highly prestigious and indicate that a scholar is at the top of their discipline. The NEH summer stipend program provides $6,000 of research support for scholars engaging in cutting-edge research.
Hayashi is interested in race and ethnicity as it applies to Asian Americans, from their initial arrival in the late 19th century to the present, with a primary focus on World War II. His academic research centers on religion, diasporic politics, intelligence/espionage, and racial ideology. He teaches courses on the history of Japan and the history of espionage.
