Him Mark Lai
American historian (1925-2009)
Him Mark Lai (Chinese: 麥禮謙; Jyutping: mak6 lai5 him1; pinyin: Mài Lǐqiān; November 1, 1925 – May 21, 2009) was an American historian and writer. He contributed to Chinese American historiography. Lai "rescued, collected, catalogued, preserved and shared" historical sources in Chinese and English. He was known as the "Dean of Chinese American history" by his academic peers, despite the fact that he was professionally trained as a mechanical engineer with no advanced training in the academic field of history. The Chronicle of Higher Education named Lai "the scholar who legitimized the study of Chinese America".
Early life
Lai was born in San Francisco, California on November 1, 1925, to Chinese immigrants. At the age of five, Lai attended Chinese school at San Francisco Chinatown's Nom Kue School. Early in his life, Lai showed great aptitude for history. In high school, Lai won first prize at a San Francisco citywide history contest. He attended first in City College of San Francisco for two years and later, he obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1947.
The public source identifies “Him Mark Lai” as american historian (1925-2009). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Mark, American and historian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5764820. VIAF identifies the subject as 71700595. The Library of Congress control number is n79060148. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2009 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “Him Mark Lai” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.