Canadian Studies Announcements

SPECIAL LEADERSHIP UPDATE

Hidetaka Hirota Appointed New Program Director

The Canadian Studies Program is delighted to announce that Dr. Hidetaka Hirota, an associate professor in the Department of History, has been appointed as the program’s new co-director beginning July 1. Professor Hirota is a social and legal historian of North America with a focus on immigration, especially nativism and immigration control in the 19th century.

Professor Hirota was born in Japan, and received his BA in foreign studies from Sophia University in Tokyo. He received his MA and PhD in history from Boston College, where his dissertation won the university’s best humanities dissertation award. He has been affiliated with the Canadian Studies Program since his arrival at Berkeley in 2022. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Professor Hirota taught at the City College of New York and Sophia University. He also previously served as a Mellon Research Fellow at Columbia University.

Professor Hirota’s award-winning first book, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy, identifies a new origin of immigration restriction in the United States, 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 book project, titled The American Dilemma, explores how the US government restricted the immigration of foreign contract workers from Canada, Asia, Mexico, and Europe at the turn of the 20th century. He is also currently working on a project exploring the history of Japanese immigration to Canada and the US, and its political impacts in those countries.

Current interim co-director Richard A. Rhodes will continue to serve alongside Professor Hirota for the next year to ensure a smooth leadership transition.

Griselda Zhou Appointed New Advisory Board Chair; Iris Nemani Joins as New Board Member

We are also excited to introduce two new members of our program’s External Advisory Board: Griselda Zhou and Iris Nemani. The Board is a group of our most dedicated friends that provides an external perspective on program operations and assists with community outreach and fundraising. Griselda and Iris bring extensive professional experience, strong community networks, and personal enthusiasm to their new roles, and we look forward to working with them.

Local community leader Griselda Zhou has been selected to lead the board, replacing outgoing board chair David Stewart. Griselda is a first-generation Chinese North American, born in Mexico, raised in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, and now residing in San Francisco. While living in Moose Jaw, she founded a student leadership group focused on multiculturalism education efforts among youth called, “We Are Canadian Teens” (W.A.C.T.) and served the Moose Jaw Motif Multicultural Festival for multiple years as a Chinese heritage performing artist and organizing committee member.

Griselda was a Director of the Digital Moose Lounge (DML), a professional group for Bay Area Canadians, for eight years between 2015-2023. She held the role of Co-Chair of the Board of Directors from 2019-2021. During her tenure at the DML, she led the transformation of the organization into a thriving community and partnership-based organization, receiving recognition from the City of San Francisco and City of San Jose for the organization’s advocacy of volunteerism and social impact in the local communities. Griselda was also a founding member of SFUers@Bay, a social and networking group serving Simon Fraser University alumni in the Bay Area.

Griselda currently serves as Global Head of Employee Communications at Woven by Toyota, a subsidiary of Toyota focused on automotive software technology and realizing a mobility society in which everyone can move freely, happily and safely. Prior to this role, she held corporate communications positions at PayPal for nearly a decade, specializing in leadership and organizational communications, public relations, and crisis communications. She has also previously held consulting roles in technology companies, including a Y-Combinator-backed startup that was acquired by Dropbox.

Griselda holds a master’s degree in integrated marketing communications from the University of Westminster (London, United Kingdom) and a bachelor’s of business administration from Simon Fraser University. Griselda is married with two children. Her passions and hobbies include advancing multiculturalism in society, promoting ocean and wildlife conservation efforts, world travel, and photography.

We are also pleased to welcome Iris Nemani, who recently moved to the Bay Area from Toronto to serve as the McMurtry Family Director at Stanford Live. Stanford Live presents a wide range of the finest performances from around the world, fostering a vibrant learning community and providing distinctive experiences through the performing arts. With its home at Bing Concert Hall and Frost Amphitheater, Stanford Live draws on the breadth and depth of Stanford University to connect performance to the significant issues, ideas, and discoveries of our time. Iris replaced former Stanford Live director and Canadian Studies board member Chris Lorway, who returned to Canada last year after being appointed president of the Banff Centre.

Iris has worked in arts and culture for more than 30 years, bringing her expertise and leadership to a variety of arts organizations. Her career has spanned both not-for-profit and commercial endeavors. She has served as Chief Programming Officer at Harbourfront Centre, Managing Director of the Toronto 2015 Pan American/Parapan American Games Cultural Program and General Manager of the Young Centre for the Performing Arts among others.

Iris studied science at the University of Toronto before earning her bachelor of applied arts in interior design from Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, formerly Ryerson University). She has guest lectured at TMU in theater producing.

Canadian Studies Program

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