Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Introduction: Appreciating Difference, Barbara Lewis

Trotter Review

Are we a narrative nation, imagined and connected mentally, tied by a common history of disruption if not by contiguous geography? Lorick-Wilmot suggests that the stories we tell offer the basis of mutual understanding across distance and cultures and generations. In a reconfigured mental Diasporic cartography, where is our citadel, our castle (not to be confused with what Europeans named as slave castles of Africa)? The remains and monuments built in this hemisphere by iron will and the drive to change yesterday, uprooting it from the ground of inequality, still stand on the highest hill in northern Haiti, reminding us …

The Somali Diaspora In Greater Boston, Paul R. Camacho, Abdi Dirshe, Mohamoud Hiray, Mohamed J. Farah

Trotter Review

Our nation was founded on and thrives on immigration. One of the newest immigrant groups in the Boston area are Somalis. They are among the largest of the new populations of African immigrants. While precise numbers are very difficult to determine, there are approximately 8,000 in the Greater Boston area and another 2,000 estimated across the rest of Massachusetts. Very few studies have examined Somalis in the United States, and no studies exist on the community in Boston or Massachusetts.

It is an interesting sociological question to ask how similar the Somali experience has been in the United States (and …

The Silent Crisis: Including Latinos And Why It Matters, Representation In Executive Positions, Boards, And Commissions In The City Governments Of Boston, Chelsea, And Somerville, Miren Uriarte, James Jennings, Jen Douglas

Human Services Faculty Publication Series

The Silent Crisis: Involving Latinos in Decision-Making & Why Latino Representation Matters provides a measure of the economic, social, and political inclusion of Latinos at mid-decade in three cities of the Commonwealth where about one fourth of the state’s Latino population lives. Often wrongly referred to as a “new population,” Latinos have been present in Massachusetts since the end of the 19th century, arriving in large numbers beginning in the 1960s and 1970s and growing to nearly 630,000 persons (9.6% of the population) by 2010. That same year, they accounted for 62.1% of the population of Chelsea, 17.5% of the …

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

Michael E. Stone

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, …

Cycling Historiography, Evidence, And Methods, Lorenz J. Finison

Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900: A Story of Race, Sport, and Society

My purpose in Boston’s Cycling Craze, 1880-1900, was to unearth a largely hidden social cycling history from the point of view of the ordinary, not the famous. While there were many Boston connections to racing champions like Major Taylor, Eddie McDuffee, and Nat Butler, and there are abundant sources of evidence about them, the research was not just about them, nor just about bicycle racing, nor just about unique or fast bikes. I wanted to write about what bicycling meant to ordinary citizens of Boston and its surrounding towns— and to write about the worsening social climate of the …