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 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.
Inspired by his instructor Stanford Lyman, Lai started to pursue research in Chinese American history.
[3] As a community activist, Lai joined the Chinese American Democratic Youth League, or Mun Ching, where he met Laura Jung, whom he eventually married in 1953.
[8] In 1973, Lai joined the Chinese Culture Center in San Francisco in order to use his historical knowledge to serve the community.
In 1984, Lai retired from his work as a mechanical engineer at the Bechtel Corporation in order to concentrate full-time on his historical research.
Lai became an influential leader of the Chinese Historical Society of America by hosting periodical conferences and publishing volumes of collected research.
The UCLA Asian American Center Press announced plans to publish his autobiography in 2009 or 2010, co-edited by Ruthanne Lum McCunn, Judy Yung, and Russell C.
[16] Him Mark Lai was what Albert Lowe calls a "stealth organizer," who was involved in progressive organizations throughout his life, strategically disguised as an interested researcher and scholar, and did not face the same community popularity or governmental scrutiny as higher profile Asian American activists of his era, such as Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama.