After a Fulbright to Brazil, she proceeded to receive her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin in 1976 in Latin American History.

She then joined the Department of History at the Washington University in St. Louis, where she stayed from 1973 to 1985, initially as an Instructor and was promoted to an Associate Professor with tenure.

After which, she served as the first Director of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America (CSERA) at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

[4] Hu-DeHart has authored three books, served as editor for four edited volumes, and penned dozens of articles and chapters.

[5] More broadly, she is a noted theorist of diasporas and transnationalism, as well as multicultural education in the United States.