Jeffery Paul Chan

American author and scholar (1942–2022)

Jeffery Paul Chan (August 19, 1942 – January 11, 2022) was an American author and scholar. He was a professor of Asian American studies and English at San Francisco State University for 38 years until his retirement in 2005.

Chan was a co founder of the Asian American studies department at San Francisco State University, and has twice served as first chair of the department. With fellow authors Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, Chan edited two editions of the groundbreaking anthology of Asian American literature, Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, which helped introduce Asian American authors as worthy of serious study. This quartet had formed the Combined Asian Resources Project (CARP) to accomplish this task, which helped reintroduce and posthumously republish older works by Asian American authors, such as John Okada's No No Boy and Louis Chu's Eat a Bowl of Tea, for which Chan penned a forward (foreword). Chan also coined the term racist love (with Chin) to express the ways Asians are stereotyped in overly positive ways that are just as damaging as the negative stereotypes used against blacks, Latinos and Native Americans. His brother is Michael Paul Chan, an actor, and a founding member of the Asian American Theater Company, where Frank Chin was a leading figure, and where Jeffery Paul served on the Board of Directors for the company. Chan also wrote a comedic play, "Bunnyhop", which was produced by East West Players during their 1977–1978 season. After a battle with cancer, Chan died on January 11, 2022, at the age of 79.