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[Review Of] Paul R. Spickard. Mixed Blood-Intermarriage And Ethnic Identity In Twentieth-Century America, Terry E. Huffman
[Review Of] Paul R. Spickard. Mixed Blood-Intermarriage And Ethnic Identity In Twentieth-Century America, Terry E. Huffman
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Just as the mixing of peoples has been a dominant theme in American social history, it has also been a compelling, if not controversial, theme in American social science. Sociologists have long recognized that intermarriage is an important social phenomenon in American society. Thus, early American social observers were drawn to study this area of social life. From Frederick Hoffman's earliest studies of black/white couples in the late nineteenth century to W. E. B. Du Bois's observations on intermarriage at the beginning of the twentieth century, the systematic study of inter-marriage stands as one of the initial starting points for …
[Review Of] Russell Thornton, With C. Matthew Snipp And Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History, Cynthia R. Kasee
[Review Of] Russell Thornton, With C. Matthew Snipp And Nancy Breen. The Cherokees: A Population History, Cynthia R. Kasee
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
A first glance at the title might wrongly suggest that Thornton's volume is best relegated to demography. This is, however, a wonderful reference for historians, ethnicists, and anthropologists, as well as an engaging work well suited for the general reader in Native American topics.
[Review Of] K. S. Tom. Echoes From Old China: Life, Legends, And Lore Of The Middle Kingdom, Jim Schnell
[Review Of] K. S. Tom. Echoes From Old China: Life, Legends, And Lore Of The Middle Kingdom, Jim Schnell
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
K. S. Tom provides insightful glimpses into a variety of aspects of Chinese culture. In the preface, the author states "this book provides a general introduction to Chinese customs, traditions and culture. It is by no means an exhaustive or definitive account of the topics that have been selected for discussion." This reviewer was initially distracted because of the wide range of topics covered and the lack of conclusiveness and interrelatedness among these topics. However, acknowledgement by the author that this book is an introduction to a variety of aspects of Chinese culture, rather than a conclusive analysis, encouraged this …
[Review Of] Thomas Vennum, Jr. Wild Rice And The Ojibway People, David M. Gradwohl
[Review Of] Thomas Vennum, Jr. Wild Rice And The Ojibway People, David M. Gradwohl
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Everything you wanted to know and lots more you never thought to ask about North American wild rice are included in this extensive tome. The plant is labelled Zizania aquatica in the Linnaean nomenclature; the Ojibway called it manoomin. The author discusses the scientific classification of wild rice, its germination, growth cycle, habitat, and enemies. He also takes up the varied uses of wild rice as food: its nutritional value, methods of preparing and cooking the grain, and the reactions of Euro-Americans to this native plant which is exceedingly rich in carbohydrates and converts efficiently to energy in the body. …
[Review Of] Alma Luz Villanueva. The Ultraviolet Sky, Julie Schrader Villegas
[Review Of] Alma Luz Villanueva. The Ultraviolet Sky, Julie Schrader Villegas
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Villanueva's first novel portrays the difficulties of self-affirmation and the struggle to understand and come to terms with a multi-faceted identity despite the single-minded conventions of society. Rosa, an artist of Mexican and German heritage, struggles to create herself and find a home where all her fragmented selves can rest. Through dreams, her relationship with her husband Julio, and her struggle to paint an obscure ultraviolet sky, she begins to explore her identities and to trust where they will lead her. She chooses to follow her "wolf' who whines and claws at her consciousness and only awakens fully in her …
[Review Of] Jade Snow Wong. Fifth Chinese Daughter, Evelyn Hu-Dehart
[Review Of] Jade Snow Wong. Fifth Chinese Daughter, Evelyn Hu-Dehart
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
I am personally delighted to see the re-issue of Jade Snow Wong's autobiographical novel, Fifth Chinese Daughter. Shortly after I arrived in the U.S. in 1959 as a rather bewildered young girl immigrant of twelve, it was my good fortune to have stumbled onto -- in the local public library -- Jade Snow Wong's wonderful story of growing up Chinese and female in America, in both the ethnic enclave of Chinatown and the San Francisco Bay Area's white college and working worlds. It helped me better understand the experience of being an "American-Chinese," the term used in those days. The …
[Review Of] Mitsuye Yamada And Sarie Sachie Hylkema, Eds. Sowing Ti Leaves: Writings By Multi-Cultural Women, Kate Motoyama
[Review Of] Mitsuye Yamada And Sarie Sachie Hylkema, Eds. Sowing Ti Leaves: Writings By Multi-Cultural Women, Kate Motoyama
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Sowing Ti Leaves gathers together personal narratives, poems, essays, and a scholarly study which were produced during the Multi-Cultural Women Writers (MCWW) of Orange County's nine-year existence. Coeditor Mitsuye Yamada states in her introduction that the writing group was formed to provide a common reference point and a forum for expression. While MCWW's ancestral ties are diverse (Argentinian, Chinese, East Indian, Hawaiian, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Lebanese, Okinawan), its members share experiences as women living within the "majority" culture. The writing process is used to enable "minority" women to understand their culture(s) and to proclaim their identities. MCWW provides a space …
[Review Of] Stephen R. Applewhite, Ed. Hispanic Elderly In Transition: Theory, Research, Policy And Practice, Allene Jones
[Review Of] Stephen R. Applewhite, Ed. Hispanic Elderly In Transition: Theory, Research, Policy And Practice, Allene Jones
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
The main focus of this book is aging as it relates to the Hispanic elderly. The author states that "the primary goal of this book is to offer a contextual overview of Hispanic aging-ranging from complex issues to tentative answers."
[Review Of] Therese Daniels And Jane Gerson, Eds. The Colour Black: Black Images In British Television, Angela M. S. Nelson
[Review Of] Therese Daniels And Jane Gerson, Eds. The Colour Black: Black Images In British Television, Angela M. S. Nelson
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
The Colour Black is a concise reference source for scholars interested in research about ethnic images portrayed in television programs produced in other countries. This volume is largely a collection of television review articles for three prime-time television formats in Great Britain: (1) situation comedies, (2) drama series and serials, and (3) soap operas.
[Review Of] Ellen Carol Dubois And Vicki L. Ruiz, Eds. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader In U. S. Women's History, Guadalupe Friaz
[Review Of] Ellen Carol Dubois And Vicki L. Ruiz, Eds. Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader In U. S. Women's History, Guadalupe Friaz
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Edited by Ellen C. DuBois and Vicki L. Ruiz, two respected historians, Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History is a welcome response to the call for a more complex approach to women's history. Central to this approach are the integration of women of color into women's history and a definition of community that reflects both conflict and concord.
[Review Of] Philip Durham And Everett L. Jones. The Negro Cowboy, George H. Junne Jr.
[Review Of] Philip Durham And Everett L. Jones. The Negro Cowboy, George H. Junne Jr.
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Except for books such as The Negro Cowboys, the African American West remains an enigma to most Americans. Popular media continue to perpetuate the stereotype of a white West, in spite of the fact that some of the earliest explorers accompanying the European invasion were of African descent. Beginning in 1501 with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, Africans were there. They were with Balboa when he "discovered" the Pacific, with Cortes in Mexico, with Cabeza de Vaca, Coronado, and others. Estevanico (Little Stephen) first explored New Mexico and Arizona.
[Review Of] Anne Wette Garland. Women Activists: Challenging The Abuse Of Power, Allene Jones
[Review Of] Anne Wette Garland. Women Activists: Challenging The Abuse Of Power, Allene Jones
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Women Activists is a long overdue book of stories written by women who have been involved in community political activities. The author, Anne Wette Garland, is to be commended for her ability to organize the stories told by fourteen women in an organized and interesting manner.
[Review Of] Farida Karodia. Coming Home And Other Stories, Phillipa Kafka
[Review Of] Farida Karodia. Coming Home And Other Stories, Phillipa Kafka
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
In Coming Home and Other Stories, Farida Karodia, South African born author now residing in Canada, has written a classic text which I recommend for use in African, contemporary, world literature, and women's studies courses.
[Review Of] Shirley Goek-Lin Lim, Mayumi Tsutakawa And Margarita Donnelly, Eds. The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology, Cortland P. Auser
[Review Of] Shirley Goek-Lin Lim, Mayumi Tsutakawa And Margarita Donnelly, Eds. The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology, Cortland P. Auser
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
The Forbidden Stitch appears to be one of the better anthologies of the work of Asian American women writers. The editors have worked assiduously to make it comprehensive. It is an exceptionally fine selection of prose, poetry, essays, and reviews. In an introduction it is stressed that the collection underlines the differences among the writers, correcting the error of too many critics who homogenize the term "Asian American women." The writers lack a common history. "The thread they form is 'multi-colored' and 'many layered.''' "The voices are plural."
[Review Of] Miriam Makeba And James Hall. Makeba: My Story, Nancy Hellner
[Review Of] Miriam Makeba And James Hall. Makeba: My Story, Nancy Hellner
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Like much of her music, Miriam Makeba's autobiography is both personal and political. As it details the story of a young girl's coming of age and search for identity, it simultaneously records the history of a country struggling for independence. In the prologue, Makeba compares herself to a South African bird soaring above the horror of apartheid (aparthood) which was instituted in 1947. As she recounts the details of war and injustice in direct, understated, idiom-filled prose, and as she intertwines details of ancient customs with the realities of modern technology, Makeba suggests that music best expresses the tragic subject …
[Review Of] Trinh T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality And Feminism, Patricia Grimshaw
[Review Of] Trinh T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality And Feminism, Patricia Grimshaw
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
In Woman, Native, Other, Trinh T. Minh-ha has taken on an ambitious task, which is to explain something of the problems confronting non-Western women writers who publish and are subjected to critiques within the established paradigms of Western scholarly discourses. Must she and her fellows position themselves as "writer of color," "woman writer," or "woman of color," she asks, as she proceeds to display the boundaries others place upon their freedom to create their own realities and establish their distinctive voices. Whereas other women theorists of postcolonialism and feminism have challenged Western-conventions largely within the linguistic and stylistic conventions of …
[Review Of] Joyce Moss And George Wilson. Peoples Of The World: North Americans-The Cultural, Geographical Setting And Historical Background Of 37 North American Peoples, Harriet Ottenheimer
[Review Of] Joyce Moss And George Wilson. Peoples Of The World: North Americans-The Cultural, Geographical Setting And Historical Background Of 37 North American Peoples, Harriet Ottenheimer
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
This is a disappointing book. It might even be a dangerous book. Disappointing because although it looks like a reference book, it turns out to have too many errors to be of much use in that fashion. Dangerous because if it finds its way into school libraries, then many of those errors will invariably find their way into student papers and student minds. Almost to add insult to injury, in what I assume is an attempt to provide a simple, readable text to a wide (and perhaps school-aged) population, the writers have adopted a remarkably awkward style. Some examples should …
[Review Of] Christine Oppong, Ed. Sex Roles, Population And Development In West Aftica [Africa], Ashton Wesley Welch
[Review Of] Christine Oppong, Ed. Sex Roles, Population And Development In West Aftica [Africa], Ashton Wesley Welch
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
This volume is part of an effort by the International Labour Office to widen the appreciation of salient demographic factors and the role of women as workers in the developing world. As stated in the introduction, it examines issues central to the national planning of four West African nations by focusing on divisions of labor, resources, skills, power and opportunities. Its thesis is threefold: a need for more conceptually rigorous documentation and understanding of social processes on which to base policies and plans; the need to give proper consideration to the diverse and changing roles of women and men; and, …
[Review Of] Americo Paredes. George Washington Gomez, Carl R. Shirley
[Review Of] Americo Paredes. George Washington Gomez, Carl R. Shirley
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Américo Paredes is a figure quite familiar to anyone who has delved even lightly and briefly into Chicano literature, history, and culture. His long and distinguished career as a teacher at the University of Texas and his excellent scholarly publications have insured that his name is among the first encountered as one begins to examine the writings of Mexican Americans. "With His Pistol in His Hand": A Border Ballad and Its Hero (1958) is a landmark study, and his collections, A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border (1976) and Folktales of Mexico (1979) are significant contributions to the corpus …
[Review Of] Frank R. Parker. Black Votes Count: Empowerment In Mississippi After 1965, Calvin E. Harris
[Review Of] Frank R. Parker. Black Votes Count: Empowerment In Mississippi After 1965, Calvin E. Harris
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
From a broad perspective, Parker discusses the political impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Thus, as he notes in his opening comments, "Since 1965 America has witnessed a renaissance of black participation" in the political process. His central focus is on the impact it had on the state of Mississippi. Throughout his discussion he examines the court challenges directed at forcing the various southern states to live up to the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, however, symbolizes local grass roots pressures taken in concert with legal challenges and thus highlights …
[Review Of] Margaret Connell Szasz. Indian Education In The American Colonies, 1607-1783, Gretchen Harvey
[Review Of] Margaret Connell Szasz. Indian Education In The American Colonies, 1607-1783, Gretchen Harvey
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
In this ethnohistory of American Indian education, Margaret Szasz broadly interprets education to mean the transmission of culture over time. Within "the arena of contact," prominent Indians who helped mediate the relations between Euro -- and Native Americans are identified. Szasz calls these individuals "cultural brokers," and her analysis of their roles in the history of colonial education is an important contribution to scholarship.
[Review Of] Peter Thomas. Strangers From A Secret Land: The Voyages Of The Bark "Albion" And The Founding Of The First Welsh Settlements In Canada, Phillips G. Davies
[Review Of] Peter Thomas. Strangers From A Secret Land: The Voyages Of The Bark "Albion" And The Founding Of The First Welsh Settlements In Canada, Phillips G. Davies
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
This is quite a long book, with a misleading subtitle, about two quite small Welsh settlements in the Maritime Provinces. Even the author admits that the settlements at Cardigan and New Cambria "were insignificant by most of the measures historians commonly use." Nor can it be very highly recommended, even to ethnic students in Canada, because about half of the material is about Welsh maritime history and Canadian provincial politics.
[Review Of] Dorothy Sterling. Black Foremothers: Three Lives, Allene Jones
[Review Of] Dorothy Sterling. Black Foremothers: Three Lives, Allene Jones
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Black Foremothers is a much needed book written about the lives of three important black women: Ellen Craft, Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell. The author, Dorothy Sterling, is to be commended for her ability to piece together the lives of these women and present them in such an interesting manner. In the foreword, Margaret Walker states that the author is highly qualified to write biographies of black women because of her intense study of American black people for at least twenty-five years.
[Review Of] Peter M. Whiteley. Deliberate Acts: Changing Hopi Culture Through The Oraibi Split, David M. Gradwohl
[Review Of] Peter M. Whiteley. Deliberate Acts: Changing Hopi Culture Through The Oraibi Split, David M. Gradwohl
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
In this volume, Peter Whiteley, an anthropologist, probes into the reasons for the split in Oraibi, largest of the thirteen Hopi Indian communities in northeastern Arizona, early in this century. Oraibi was a thriving village in 1540 at the time of Coronado's entrada into the southwest; archaeological evidence suggests that the village was settled at least four or five centuries earlier. In 1906, one group of villagers angrily left or were forced out of Oraibi and established a settlement known as Bacavi. Previous studies have portrayed the Bacavi Hopi as "hostiles," that is, culturally traditional people who opposed U.S. goverment …
[Review Of] Roland E. Wolsey. The Black Press, U.S.A., Allene Jones
[Review Of] Roland E. Wolsey. The Black Press, U.S.A., Allene Jones
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
The Black Press, U.S.A. is an interesting book written about black publications in the United States from a historical perspective. The author, a white professor emeritus of Journalism at the Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University, is to be commended on his ability to organize the history of the black press in such an organized and interesting manner.
[Review Of] Margaret B. Wilkerson, Ed. 9 Plays By Black Women, Opal Palmer Adisa
[Review Of] Margaret B. Wilkerson, Ed. 9 Plays By Black Women, Opal Palmer Adisa
Explorations in Sights and Sounds
Black women writers, primarily novelists, have taken center stage for the last two decades, but black women playwrights have not been given similar coverage. The explanation, in part, is that plays are often only published after successful productions, and the plays by the majority of black women have only been produced in local, small theaters. Consequently, their works have not been given serious critical attention. Margaret Wilkerson's 9 Plays by Black Women showcases plays by established and well celebrated black female playwrights, like Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Ntozake Shange, and Beah Richards as well as less well-known playwrights whose works …