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University Reporter - Vol. 01, No. 04 - December 1996, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

University Reporter - Vol. 01, No. 03 - November 1996, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

We Could Shape It: Organizing For Asian Pacific American Student Empowerment, Peter Nien-Chu Kiang

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

With the doubling of the school-age population of Asian Pacific Americans during the 1990s, the unmet needs of Asian Pacific Americans are escalating dramatically in schools throughout the country. In most settings, teachers, counselors, and administrators do not share the ethnic, linguistic, and racial backgrounds of their Asian Pacific American students. Constrained by limited resources, an increasingly hostile, anti-immigrant climate, and their own stereotypical assumptions, educators have been unable to respond effectively to the full range of academic, social, and personal challenges that face growing numbers of Asian Pacific American students.

University Reporter - Vol. 01, No. 02 - October 1996, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

Shelter Poverty: Housing Affordability Among Asian Americans, Michael E. Stone

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

Relatively little research has been conducted that focuses on the housing situation of Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (hereafter generally referred to as Asian Americans), especially on the national level. From a review of about 30 articles and reports over the past decade that examine racial/ethnic housing situations nationally, only one specifically addressed housing problems of Asian Americans (Hansen, 1986) while two others included Asian Americans along with other populations of color. Of the remaining articles, most used the terms race, racial discrimination, or segregation in their titles, yet did not include Asian Americans in the studies. Of particular note, …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

In a paraphrase of Yogi Berra's immortal words, we came to a fork in the road and we took it. Which is all in the way of introducing this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy. The articles featured here, while spanning a very broad spectrum of public policy, have several unifying themes. They are all case studies in one way or another of the incompetence that is an essential feature of the public policy process in a democratic culture, of the constraints in the way of making change, no matter how obviously desirable or in the …

The Clean Water Act: Financing Combined Sewer Overflow Projects, Clyde W. Barrow, William Hogan

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 1987 Congress expanded the scope of the Clean Water Act to include combined sewer overflows (CSOs) despite continuing to reduce federal assistance for water-pollution abatement and despite the fact that CSO abatement is far more costly than previous water-quality mandates. As a result, many low-income deindustrializing cities are now subject to an additional federal mandate that many of them cannot afford without extensive federal or state assistance. The authors conclude that, in lieu of increased federal funding for CSO abatement, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulatory guidelines and the Clean Water Act be amended to include an assessment of the …

Umass Chooses A Political Executive: The Politics Of A Presidential Search, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

Horace Mann, the father of American public education, had served as president of the Massachusetts Senate prior to becoming the state's first secretary of education. Since then, as reformers succeeded in removing politics from the sacred groves of academe, appointing a politician to head the state's educational system fell into disfavor. Relatively recently, however, there have been two abortive attempts by politicians to reach the executive pinnacle of public higher education. Both James Collins, in 1986, and David Bartley, in 1991, were defeated in the quest to achieve this goal. Historical understanding of these battles is necessary to comprehend what …

Downsizing The Massachusetts Mental Health System: The Politics Of Evasion, Richard A. Hogarty

New England Journal of Public Policy

For the past three decades the topic of the proper role of state mental hospitals has been vigorously debated as a major public policy issue in Massachusetts. The state has had two runs at hospital closings: the first between 1973 and 1981, when the deinstitutionalization policy flourished, the second between 1991 and 1993, when the privatization policy was developed. In making the case for this seismic shift, a governor's special commission concluded that the state had too many hospitals for too few patients at too high a cost. This study provides a detailed analysis of the problems that beset the …

The Trouble With Connecticut, Kenneth J. Long

New England Journal of Public Policy

The problems of Connecticut, this author believes, parallel those of Nigeria, which are described by Chinua Achebe in The Trouble with Nigeria. Both places may be considered dirty, callous, ostentatious, and dishonest. The causes of these and other defects are also similar: unusually large disparities in living standards, high cost of living, localism, and lack of leadership. In Connecticut, gross inequities in taxation seem to intermingle with and reinforce all these roots of unpleasantness.

The Battle For City Hall: What Do We Fight Over?, Louise Simmons

New England Journal of Public Policy

An important dimension of contemporary American urban politics involves the redistributive role of local government. Activism at the local level has produced electoral movements that have succeeded in electing progressive local candidates and coalitions, yet on assuming office those officials face tremendous obstacles in meeting the expectations of those who put them in office. From 1991 to 1993 in Hartford, Connecticut, an attempt at progressive governance by a multiracial coalition was fraught with difficulties. Tensions among progressives and among leadership from impoverished communities of color, responses of downtown interests and the media, fiscal crises and the unrelenting needs of the …

The Repeal Of Rent Control In Cambridge, Robert P. Moncreiff

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the November 8, 1994, state election, Massachusetts voters approved a question placed on the ballot by initiative petition passing a law that effectively outlawed rent control throughout the commonwealth. This law had its most dramatic effect in Cambridge, where a stringent rent control system had been in effect since 1970. The success of the petition was realized primarily through the grassroots efforts of a coalition of small-property owners in Cambridge who felt aggrieved by the city's rent control system. The use of a statewide vote on an initiative petition to enact a law with predominantly local effect created for …

University Reporter - Vol. 01, No. 01 - September 1996, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1996-2009, University Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Archaeology Of Thompson Island, Barbara E. Luedtke

Anthropology Faculty Publication Series

This report summarizes the results of a 1993 survey by UMass Boston, and of previous archaeological fieldwork on Thompson Island, Boston, MA, including background research, documentary research, walkover reconnaissance, and subsurface testing with shovel test pits and 1 meter square excavation units. Despite the fact that many parts of the island have not yet been surveyed, twenty prehistoric sites are now known, an unusually high density for the Boston Harbor Islands. Components range in age from Late Archaic through Late Woodland, with Middle Woodland especially well represented. Several large habitation sites with shell middens are known, in addition to numerous …

Research To Practice: Trends In Supported Employment: The Experiences Of 94 Community Rehabilitation Service Providers From 1986 - 1991, Dana Scott Gilmore, John Butterworth

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

A follow-back study (data from 1986 and 1991) examined service patterns of community rehabilitation providers for supported employment, competitive employment, and sheltered workshops.

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

The Black community in the United States is undergoing major demographic changes that point to greater ethnic diversity. There are many ethnic groups that compose the Black community today, including people from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and other parts of the world. This community can no longer be approached as socially or demographically monolithic. Individuals in these groups may define themselves as "Black" but not necessarily, "African American." This issue of the Trotter Review explores facets of on-going ethnic transformation within the Black community. It begins with several essays that introduce broad themes related to this social and demographic …

Black Immigrant Community Of Washington, D.C.: A Public History Approach, Portia James

Trotter Review

In the Washington, D.C. area contemporary Black community life has been shaped in large part by a pattern of migration and settlement of African Americans from southern states. But international immigration has also made its mark on the local Black community. Today, Washington and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland are home to significant populations of Black people from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. This international movement of people has resulted in the broadening of Black community life and the development of a multicultural and multi-ethnic Black population in the area.

Haitian Immigrants And African-American Relations: Ethnic Dilemmas In A Racially-Stratified Society, Gemima M. Remy

Trotter Review

This article focuses on Haitian immigrants and how they have attempted to interpret their migration experience and ascribed racial and ethnic status in the U.S. It is argued that the legal and economic positions of Haitian immigrants have not only impacted their perceptions and understanding of their living conditions in this country, but they have also compelled them to reassess their self-definition as a distinct group of individuals with their own history, culture, nationality, and racial identity. Like many other Caribbean immigrants, Haitians "suffer double invisibility... as immigrants and black immigrants or double visibility as blacks in the eyes of …

Cape Verdean-Americans: A Historical Perspective Of Ethnicity And Race, Jean E. Barker

Trotter Review

Cape Verdean immigrants in the United States worked to establish their own unique ethnic identity in an effort not to be grouped with Afro-Americans. On the Cape Verde Islands they were Portuguese citizens and identified as Portuguese. In the United States they persisted in stressing their identification as Portuguese, claiming the right to self-designation rather than accepting one imposed by an exceedingly race-conscious society. As one immigrant stated: "We are not black, we are Portuguese. We know we have black in our blood, and white." In the turn-of-the-century United States any amount of African ancestry guaranteed an identification by society …

The Linkage Between African Americans And The South African Black Immigrant Community, Chris Nteta

Trotter Review

An understanding of the South African immigrant experience in the United States requires placing it within a context of linkages and alliances between transported South African blacks and the African American community. Like many other nationalities, South African black immigration to this country resulted from people fleeing the murderous apartheid regime whose national constitution and laws enshrined a racist ideology buttressed by a myriad of draconian practices. In this respect, South African immigrants were predominantly refugees and exiles on a quest for asylum. On the other hand, this group exhibits distinctive political tendencies which sets it apart from other such …

Explanations For African Immigration, Kwaku Danso

Trotter Review

Africa is a continent in crisis. Sub-Saharan Africa today poses the greatest development challenge facing the world today. Many of Africa's development programs have failed miserably. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have attributed this failure to inefficient internal economic policies pursued by African governments. These governments, on the other hand, blame failure on uncontrollable external factors in the world economy, such as international financial markets, worldwide recessions, declining commodity prices, protectionist trade policies against African exports, and the oil price shocks of the 1970s. While there is merit to each of these schools of thought, there is …

Leadership In The African Immigrant Community: Conflict And Coalition, Mfon Ufot

Trotter Review

Whenever African immigrants gather, most assuredly the conversation of their plight to the United States, will be a heated topic. Most of the discussion laments the apparent apathy in the African community and the lack of collective leadership to mobilize it. According to the 1990 census, there are over 350,000 African in the United States and that number is increasing every year. The State Department's Information on Immigration reports about 20,000 Africans won the "immigration lottery" to emigrate to the United States last year. This year, about 20,000 slots are allotted to the African continent. This program is a part …

The Political Issues For African Immigrants In The United States, Paul E. Udofia

Trotter Review

Since the 1970s the African-born population in the United States has grown steadily in numbers. This increase of African immigrants offers an historic opportunity for sustained reconstruction of ancestral relationships with Black America. At this point, however, Africans who are mostly English-speaking and highly educated, remain largely isolated and even ostracized. So, what must be done for these groups, Blacks and African immigrants, to begin working together effectively? This essay begins with one basic query necessary for understanding this potential development: What is the current status of African immigrants in the United States? After providing a brief overview in response …

Caribbean Migrant Experiences In Church And Society, J A George Irish

Trotter Review

One of the greatest ironies of the Caribbean community in New York is, that it is at one and the same time, both "power-full" and powerless. Its power lies essentially in a relatively untapped and latent potential, whereas its powerlessness rests in its virtual immobilization as an ethnic group. By dint of sheer numbers the Caribbean presence, whether solely anglophone/West Indian, or more broadly representative of the wider Caribbean Basin, is a formidable force to reckon with, since over 30 percent of the immigrant population of New York is Caribbean. In fact, they are among the fastest growing immigrant groups. …

West Indian Immigrant Adaptation: The Role Of Cross-Pressures, Milton Vickerman

Trotter Review

The purpose of this essay is to discuss ideas of race and achievement as they emanate from West Indian immigrants. I argue that these immigrants, part of the post-1965 upsurge in non-white immigrants, are helping to cement the significance of race in American life but making the racial picture more complex at the same time. This is occurring because their numbers are growing, their economic performance questions the traditional link that has been made between race and achievement, and their experiences in this country validate the complaints emanating from African-Americans about racial discrimination. In short, West Indians embody the contradictions …

Signs, Symbols, And Slave Culture: Representations In Black Thunder, Sandra M. Grayson

Trotter Review

Black Thunder (1936), by Arna Bontemps, is a historical novel that recreates Gabriel Prosser's 1800 slave revolt. This novel is useful in reviewing some of the historical and cultural linkages between Black slaves in the U.S. and African cultures. Thematically, Black Thunder does more than represent Black people's self-assertion through revolt, it also shows their assertion of identity through practicing Atlantic (or western) African traditions, especially those of the Kongo. This is a topic that continues to be significant in light of greater contemporary political and economic linkages between U.S. Blacks and Africans, as well as increasing African immigration into …

A Pre-Negotiation Guide To The Conflict In Northern Ireland, Padraig O'Malley

John M. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies Publications

On September 1, 1994, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) declared a ceasefire.

The declaration was potentially one of the most significant developments in Irish history since Ireland was partitioned in 1920. It represented, or at the time it seemed to represent, an acknowledgement by the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, that Ireland cannot be united by physical force, that the armed struggle of the last twenty five years to drive the British out of Northern Ireland has not worked, that the strategy of "the Long War," based on the premise that if the IRA persisted in its campaign …

Ramaphosa And Meyer In Belfast – The South African Experience: How The New South Africa Was Negotiated, Padraig O'Malley

John M. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies Publications

The public lecture given by Cyril Ramaphosa and RoelfMeyer at the Europa Hotel in Belfast on 28 June 1996 was held under the auspices of The Irish Association. The sponsors are grateful to the Association for their unstinting support and the organization it provided to ensure the success of the event. The sponsors would especially like to acknowledge the contributions of Professor Bernard Cullen, President of the Association and Ms. Barbara FitzGerald.

As one ofthe co-sponsors ofthe event, the John W. McCormack Institute ofPublic Affairs at the University ofMassachusetts Boston would also like to single out the contribution of the …

Research To Practice: Multiple Perspectives On Implementing The Rehabilitation Act Amendments Of 1992, Jean Whitney-Thomas

Research to Practice Series, Institute for Community Inclusion

This summary of a qualitative study reports the results of focus groups with administrators and counselors in Massachusetts's vocational rehabilitation agency. The findings highlight differences in perspectives on how the 1992 Rehabilitation Act Amendments have been implemented.

Friday Report - Vol. 06, No. 05 - May 10, 1996, University Of Massachusetts Boston

1991-1996, Friday Report

No abstract provided.