Douglas W. Lee Sr. is the author of this series. He is a second generation Cantonese-Chinese American, born in Washington D.C. in 1945, who grew up in Washington D.C. and San Francisco Chinatowns. He has a B.A. in history from Lewis and Clark College, 1967 (Portland, Oregon); an M.A. in East Asian Studies from the University of Michigan, 1969 (Ann Arbor, Michigan); a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, 1979; and a JD from Lewis and Clark Law School, 1988 (Portland, Oregon). He taught at several private Liberal arts colleges including Lewis and Clark College, and Linfield College (McMinnville, Oregon) as well as public Community Colleges including De Anza College (Cupertino, California) and San Francisco City College. 

 

He also taught at major universities including the University of Washington, University of Oregon, and University of California at Santa Barbara. His teaching fields were Modern East Asia, Modern China, Modern Japan, and Asian American Studies. His research focus is in Cantonese-Chinese American History (1850-1900).  In 1979-1980 he was the co-founder and first national President of the National Association for Asian American Studies.  In 1981, he was co-founder of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest and was the first editor of its journal, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Washington).

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He retired from teaching in 2014.  After retiring he taught several Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) classes at Dominican University (San Rafael, California), Sonoma State University (Rohnert Park, California) and the University of California at Berkeley.