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A New Look At The Old "Race" Language: Rethinking "Race" And Exclusion In Social Policy, Chorswang Ngin

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

This essay is an examination of the use of the notion “race" current in American social science literature and public discourse. It argues that the current assumptions of “race" are mistaken and lead to misunderstanding and misdirected social policy. A rethinking of the notions of “race" requires making a paradigmatic shift of the old categories of “race" and “race relations" to a new language that rejects “race" as a descriptive and an analytical category. It examines the processes through which “racist" social policies are enacted against Asian immigrants in contemporary Southern California.