Kit Myers is transracial and transnational adoptee from Hong Kong and grew up in Oregon. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, San Diego in ethnic studies and his B.S. in ethnic studies and journalism from the University of Oregon. Myers was previously a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Merced. His teaching interests include the study of race as a social, relational, and intersectional category of difference and power. In addition to teaching many of the core required classes for Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (e.g., Intro, Theories, and Methods), he has taught Race and Law, Introduction to Asian American Studies, and multiple graduate courses on power and difference.
His forthcoming book, The Violence of Love: Race, Adoption, and Family in the United States, with University of California Press (2025), uses interdisciplinary methods of archival, legal, and discursive analysis to argue that while adoption is imbued with love, violence is attached to adoption in complex ways. The book comparatively examines the transracial and transnational adoption of Asian, Black, and Native American children by White families to understand how race has been constructed relationally to mark certain homes, families, and nations as spaces of love, freedom, and better futures against others that not.
Myers has also published journal articles in Adoption Quarterly, Critical Discourse Studies, Adoption & Culture, and Amerasia, which examine adoption, identity, race, and belonging. He has also written on issues of race and policing. He serves as on the executive committee for the Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture. He previously served on the leadership team of the Adoption Museum Project and worked three summers at a summer camp for transnational and transracial adoptees.
For UC Merced, Myers is currently a Board Member for the UCM Faculty Association, UCM Campus Lead for the UC Consortium on AAPI Policy & Community Priorities, and a member of the Faculty Welfare and Academic Freedom committee. He has also served as co-chair of the Police Advisory Board.
When Myers is not working, he loves spending time with his partner and two kids, being in nature, watching sports, coaching his daughters' soccer teams, and visiting family in Oregon.