Sunmin Kim is an assistant professor of sociology at Dartmouth College. He is primarily interested in bringing insights from sociology of culture and knowledge into the studies of race and immigration in the United States.
Kim is currently working on a book manuscript that looks at how American social scientists and federal bureaucrats attempted to study immigrants in the early twentieth century, and how such attempts led to the re-invention of the principles of boundary-making around the American nation. To answer these questions, Kim is analyzing archival materials related to the Dillingham Commission Report (1911) – the most comprehensive study of immigrants ever undertaken by the federal government.
In his other projects, Kim studied political incorporation of immigrants and their children in New York City; a new method of understanding minority politics; and the relationship between democracy and public opinion polling in East Asia. In addition to his Ph.D. in sociology from University of California, Berkeley, Kim received B.A. and M.A. in sociology from Seoul National University.