Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

[Review Of] Benjamin B. Ringer And Elinor R. Lawless. Race-Ethnicity And Society, Alberto Pulido

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The heritage of European colonization in the "New World" left a legacy of dualism for the contemporary nation-states of South, Central, and North America, according to Ringer and Lawless. As a major focus of their work, their "duality thesis" contends that European colonists constructed a society modeled in their racial, religious, and national image, resulting in the formation of a lasting colonial plural structure with a permanently established elite. Racial and ethnic groups emerged first as sojourner colonizers and then formalized their relationship with the establishment of colonies and the creation of racially segmented and subjugated societies. Dominant ethnic/racial groups …

[Review Of] Kathleen Mullen Sands, Cd. Circle Of Motion: Arizona Anthology Of Contemporary American Indian Literature, Kristin Herzog

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The subtitle of this collection raises a question: Is it wise to mix various genres and also authors from very different tribes and then to limit this mixture by the arbitrary geographical borders of a state?

[Review Of] Leslie Marmon Silko. Almanac Of The Dead, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

For Leslie Marmon Silko aficionados, the "novel" may surprise them. Highly successful as a short story writer and the creator of the unusually spiritual novel Ceremony, Silko writes a tome, Dickensian in length and in the number of its dramatis personae.

[Review Of] Werner Sollors, Cd. The Invention Of Ethnicity, Hartwig Isernhagen

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The Invention of Ethnicity is obviously and admittedly shaped after Hobsbawm's and Ranger's Invention of Tradition, published in 1986, when the essays in this volume were finished. In the meantime, much of what Sollors argues for in his editor's introduction has become accepted knowledge under the general heading of the constructedness of identity and subjectivity. If, however, the book has not, as might appear probable at first sight, been overtaken and made obsolete by the very success of the views it advocates -- if the reverse, rather, seems to be true and to justify a belated discussion in these pages …

[Review Of] Vernon J. Williams. From A Caste To A Minority: Changing Attitudes Of American Sociologists Towards Afro-Americans, Cary D. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Attitudes towards specific racial minorities have been central to the history of the United States. These attitudes have influenced the development of social and cultural institutions, they have determined the structure of our communities, and they have affected our laws and our politics. Given the centrality of race in American culture, it is surprising that until the second half of the twentieth century there was little effort to examine systematically the role of race in US history, or to examine changing attitudes towards race; and the efforts that were made rarely made it into the mainstream of American historiography.

[Review Of] Jack Weatherford. Native Roots: How The Indians Enriched America, David M. Gradwohl

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This volume and Weatherford's penultimate book (Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988) discuss in detail the contributions of Native American populations to the Old World and to the culture of the invaders who ultimately conquered the New World. Both books are timely in terms of the current hoopla concerning the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's arrival on Caribbean shores. They both put the lie to the idea that acculturation is a one-way street. Native Roots additionally indicates the tenacity of many American Indian traditions in surviving centuries of attempts at forced …

[Review Of] Herman J. Viola. After Columbus: The Smithsonian Chronicle Of The North American Indians, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In a factual but impassioned introduction, George P. Horse Capture writes a fitting foreword to this work on the history of Native Americans through the last five hundred years. Through the growing number of non-Indians honestly writing about the indigenous peoples, a mass audience is finally learning about the tragic history and the depressed conditions of the tribes. He praises the work of Dee Brown and of Alvin Josephy, Jr., as well as the author of the present work, Herman Viola.

[Review Of] Sylvia Watanabe And Carol Bruchac. Home To Stay: Asian American Women's Fiction, Mary Young

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Frank Chin, a Chinese American playwright and essayist has written, "no one . . . was going to tell them [Asian Americans] that America not Asia was their home, that English was their language . . . ." The women writers collected in this volume are claiming America as their home and English as their language. These writers fashion and refashion the American experience from their ethnic perspective. This publication brings together many Asian American women writers in one volume. The contributors are not only of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino ancestry, but also of Malaysian, Vietnamese, Asian Indian, and Pakistani …

An Art-Historical Paradigm For Investigating Native American Pictographs Of The Lower Pecos Region, Texas, John Antoine Labadie

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

In the shadows of deep canyons in Southwest Texas and Northern Mexico, where the Pecos, Devils, and Rio Grande flow, are thousands of paintings on the walls of hundreds of rockshelters and overhangs. Archaeologists term such works "pictographic rock art." These particular pictographs were created over many centuries by Native American groups known collectively today as the Lower Pecos Region cultures.

The Persistence Of Ethnicity In African American Popular Music: A Theology Of Rap Music, Angela M. S. Nelson

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

The racial oppression of black people in many ways has fueled and shaped black musical forms in America. One example is the blues which originated in the rural South among poor, nonliterate, agrarian African Americans.[1] In the North the music became more formalized, and singers such as Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith, Ida Cox, and Sarah Martin became known as the queens of the "classic blues." Another musical genre is jazz, which was largely based on the twelve-bar blues harmonic structure and phrasing. It was more "polished" than the earlier New Orleans jazz at the turn of the …

Sources Of Chicano Art: Our Lady Of Guadalupe, Jacinto Quirarte

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

There have been two main streams of influence on Chicano artists aside from the obvious one that is the result of their artistic training, education and development in the United States. The primary influence came from Mexico, first during the colonial period in the form of New Spanish art and architecture, and then in modem times provided by the Mexican muralists through their work and their use of pre-Columbian art. The New Spanish materials formed the nucleus for the second stream of influence composed of the various manifestations of religious folk art found primarily in the Southwest.

Edna Manley's "The Diaries": Cultural Politics And The Discourse Of Self, Consuelo Lopez Springfield

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

A critic of imperialism, race and class privilege, sculptor Edna Manley contributed to the ascendancy of a West Indian cultural aesthetic. Her productivity in the creative arts and her promotion of indigenous cultural organizations were vital to the growth of a post-colonial identity expressing Jamaican national unity and cultural plurality. The wife of Premier Norman W. Manley and the mother of Michael Manley, Jamaica's former Prime Minister, she drew strength from her cross-cultural heritage as a British-trained artist seeking to express the collective unconsciousness of her people. Her creative work finds its symbols in the subaltern currents of Caribbean life …

Contributors

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Notes on contributors to Explorations in Ethnic Studies, Volume 15, Issue 1, 1992

Gong Lum V. Rice: The Convergence Of Law, Race And Ethnicity, Malik Simba

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

In the constitutional case of Gong Lum v. Rice (1927), the United States Supreme Court, composed entirely of Bok Guey (whites), adjudged Hon Yen (Chinese) to be in the same social classification as Lo Mok (blacks).[1] The case, which pertained to "racially" segregated schools, reveals the problematic of law, race, and ethnicity.

Critique [Of Strategies To Increase The Number Of Minority Teachers In The Public Schools By Glenn M. Kraig], Jesse M. Vazquez

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

In the course of his article, Kraig reviews a number of important ways to assure the recruitment and increase of minority teachers in the public school system. He also discusses specific programs which could stand as exemplary efforts directed at the daunting task of increasing the number of minorities in the educational pipeline, and ultimately, in the public school setting. Before examining these model programs and strategies, Kraig reviews the current and future demographic trends which suggest that the "relative population of the teaching force is not even close to being representative of the composition of the student body in …

Abstracts From The Twentieth Annual Conference, "Ethnicity And Racism In The Americas"

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Early in March participants gathered in Boca Raton, Florida, for the Twentieth Annual Conference of the National Association for Ethnic Studies. The conference theme, "Ethnicity and Racism in the Americas," provided the opportunity to examine perspectives related to the Quincentennial and the encounter among various populations in what is now collectively identified as the "Americas." Presenters discussed the impact of five hundred years of colonialism as well as the experiences of "new" immigrants, many of them from continents other than Europe.

Elder-Caregiving Among University Employees: Responsibilities And Needs, Constance L. Coogle, Edward F. Ansello

Virginia Center on Aging Publications

Although many institutions of higher education often house the researchers who study eldercare, few have documented the need for information and services among their estimated 460,000 employees who face the difficult task of effectively balancing work and eldercare responsibilities. Even fewer have established programs to address this need.

Drs. Constance Coogle and Edward Ansello have recently completed an exhaustive survey of VCU employees (N = 11,430) to determine the extent to which they provide care to disabled parents or spouses.[1] A longer, more detailed survey was sent to those who indicated that they were eldercaregivers to measure their perceived …

The Social Construction Of Abortion, Alexis Lora Ruffin

Theses and Dissertations

The essential socio-political question abortion raises is twofold: within whose legitimate province is the abortion decision to be made and what are the salient factors in determining subsequent resolutions over access. The answers speak to perceptions of legitimate authority, which are fundamental to the social construction of abortion.

The disparate literature on abortion was examined to develop a typology of perspectives on abortion. Theories from feminist sociology and social psychology were employed to examine the impact abortion access and the subsequent negotiation over legitimate authority have on the social order. The underlying hypothesis of this research is that abortion is …

Adolescents' Perceptions Of The Effects Of School-Based Family Life Education On Utilization Of Parents As A Resource For Problem Solving And For Sex-Specific Information, Bonnie B. Dowdy

Theses and Dissertations

Parental involvement is assumed to be an important component of successful school-based family life education programs. Historically, however, parents have been described as uninvolved in their adolescents’ sexuality education. Few data exist that explain either parents’ non-involvement or adolescents’ perceptions of parents as resources to support healthy sexual development. Existing research adopts a narrow, social control perspective on adolescent sexuality and on evaluation of community-based sexuality education programs. Given the increasing numbers of school-based family life education programs and of national organizations encouraging parental involvement components in preventive programs, empirical research on the interface of school and home-based sexuality education …

Mature Women Students: Effects Of The Gender Division Of Labor On Education, Sarah Jane Brubaker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to better understand the trend toward mature women college students as impacted by the gender division of labor. It is based on qualitative research involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten African-American and eleven white mature women students age 30 and over enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The interview questions focus on two main decision points in the lives of mature women students. The first is defined as the point at which they chose a course of action, other than attending college, after high school, or when they left college. The second is defined as the point at …

Adult Sibling Loss: Family Dynamics And Individual Adult Sibling Loss: Family Dynamics And Individual Characteristics, Stephen D. Stahlman

Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated family, individual and sibling relationship variables of adult sibling loss, using a cross-sectional survey design. A purposive sampling procedure was used to recruit adult subjects that had experienced the death of an adult sibling within the last five years. Ninety-four subjects responded to the initial request with 84 subjects returning questionnaires for an 89% response rate. Family variables of communication, cohesion, and adaptability and individual variables of individuation, self esteem as well as level of grief were operationalized using standardized instruments through a mailed questionnaire.

It was predicted that significant relationships would be found between family …