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 “Yellow Peril” 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.