Canadian Studies welcomes new faculty affiliate, Hidetaka Hirota

June 20, 2022

Canadian Studies is pleased to announce that Hidetaka Hirota, an associate professor in the Department of History, has joined our program as our newest faculty affiliate.

Professor Hirota is a historian of the United States, specializing in immigration history. His first book, Expelling the Poor, examines the origins of US immigration policy, based on a study of the deportation of impoverished Irish immigrants from the United States to Canada and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. His current project is titled The American Dilemma, and traces the history of U.S. policy for restricting the immigration of foreign contract workers from Canada, Asia, Mexico, and Europe between the 1880s and 1920s.

Professor Hirota is new to UC Berkeley, having joined the faculty earlier this spring. He received his bachelor's degree in foreign studies at Sophia University in Tokyo, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Boston Collge. In the fall, he will teach a seminar on the history of American immigration law and policy.