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An Invisible Minority: An Examination Of Migrant Education, Margaret A. Laughlin

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

If one had the task of identifying the most educationally disadvantaged group of youngsters in the United States, the ones who under-perform all other groups enrolled in school, who have the highest school dropout rate, who have the lowest academic achievement level and highest number of school failures, no doubt the group readily identified would be the children of migrant agricultural families. These children face a unique set of problems. The migrant family, moving from state to state, alone or in groups, has created a unique life style reflecting the unpredictable agricultural conditions. Available statistics concerning the educational plight of …

Critique [Of Symbolic Interaction And Black Mental Health: Understanding Black Self-Conceptions], Jimmy L. Williams

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Aside from the intrinsic merit of Dr. Shirley V. Brown's "Symbolic interaction and Black Mental Health,...” the paper raises several important corollary issues that need extensive investigation; (1) the effects of one's self-concept upon how he or she views others; (2) the negligible effects of affirmative action programs; (3) the adverse effects of public school integration on blacks; (4) the validity of the assumption that schools in predominantly black neighborhoods are inherently inferior; and (5) the insidious notion that mainstreaming is both possible and desirable.

God's Silence And The Shrill Of Ethnicity In The Chicano Novel, Joe E. Rodriquez

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Ethnic identity has to do with freely set of values, attitudes, and behavior from one’s cultural legacy in order to affirm a unique sense of peoplehood. In the United States ethnic groups such as the Chicano or Mexican American are often stigmatized, and the psychological burden of ethnic awareness can weigh heavily. Yet a healthy sense of ethnic identity is absolutely necessary for a positive self-concept when a person is part of a group that is slighted because of race or appearance. The question then is: how do Chicanos come to terms with their cultural tradition in a society that …

Critique [Of The Image Of Gays In Chicano Prose Fiction], W. Thomas Jamison

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

The findings of Professor Reinhardt as they relate to his survey of the image of homosexuals in Chicano prose fiction are interesting and informative, but not surprising given the "macho" mental set often associated with this culture. His first two points, which seem to hold about the homosexual in contemporary society, also seem to be the viewpoint held by most Americans. In other words, a lack of tolerance towards the homosexual is not unique to Chicanos. As for the fact that Chicanos are ignored in writings which have homosexuality as a theme, this probably stems from the tendency for writers …

The Image Of Gays In Chicano Prose Fiction, Karl J. Reinhardt

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

One of the world's best-kept secrets, until recently, was that a sizable proportion of men and women find their most significant relationships, both emotionally and physically, with members of their own sex. For example, the 1971 edition of Brief Lives fails to inform its readers that homosexual relationships were meaningful in the lives of Tchaikovsky, Thoreau, Garcia Lorca or Virginia Wolfe. A most blatant example of this intentional negligence dealing with Chicano writers can be found in Literatura Chicana: texto y contexto, in which a selection of John Rechy is given a fourteen-line introduction which does not mention that Rechy …

[Review Of] Hanay Geiogamah, New Native American Drama: Three Plays, Louise C. Maynor

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This collection of plays is significant because it is the first Native American drama written by a Native American. Hanay Geiogamah, a Kiowa Indian, has been actively involved as a playwright (producing these plays in the 19705), has taught drama at the University of Washington, and has directed Native American theater in recent years (directing his own work, as well as other drama, at the La Mama Experimental Theater in New York and directing the Native American Theater Ensemble). This thin volume, New Native American Drama: Three Plays, was readied for publication only after each drama had been performed and …

[Review Of] Herman Grey, Tales From The Mohaves, Dona Hoilman

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The author, Shul-ya, a Mohave of the Beaver Clan, originally wrote the tales in this book for his children, later expanding them for the enjoyment of all ages. Born on the Arizona Fort Mohave Reservation, Shul-ya learned these tales from an uncle who had dreamed the character of Swift Lance, the mythological hero of the tales.

[Review Of] Kolawole Ogungbesand (Ed.), New West African Literature, Jean Bright

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This brief collection of eleven scholarly and well-documented critical essays, written largely by African university professors of language and literature who hold degrees from European and American universities, is even more restricted than the title suggests. With a half dozen or so notable exceptions, only the poetry, drama, and novels published since 1965 are discussed here. And not all West African countries are represented.

A Note On Reviews, Helen Maclam

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

This issue (January 1981) of Explorations In Ethnic Studies is the last in which book reviews will appear. ln March we will publish our first annual review supplement, Explorations in Sights and Sounds. Sights and Sounds will consist entirely of reviews and we plan to include non-print media such as records and films, as well as books, monographs, and new journals.

Critique [Of The Roles Of Ethnic Theater In Immigrant Communities In The United States 1850-1930], Zora Devrnja Zimmerman

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

A major point of ambiguity in the essay on ethnic theater, namely the inexact, overly-generalized application of the term ethnic, unwittingly perpetuates a widespread misconception about immigrant groups and unfortunately weakens valuable observations on immigrant culture. The study reinforces the tendency to perceive groups other than one's own as homogeneous and undifferentiated.

[Review Of] Miracle Hill: The Story Of A Navaho Boy By Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell And T.D. Allen, Dona Hoilman

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

A unique experience awaits readers of Miracle Hill, the autobiography of Blackhorse Mitchell, nicknamed “Barney” a young Navaho boy who began his own story as an assignment in his twelfth grade English class in the Santa Fe Institute of American Indian Arts under the tutelage of Terry D. Allen. Unlike the other students in the class, who finished their life stories in half an hour or so, Barney found that he had a whole book stored up inside him, just waiting to be put on paper But Barney was still in the process of learning English as a second language, …

Critique [Of Symbolic Interaction And Black Mental Health: Understanding Black Self-Conceptions], Barbara Hiura

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Shirley Vining Brown's “Symbolic Interaction and Black Mental Health: Understanding Black Self Conceptions” presents significant and vital information concerning the effects of negative self-concepts on black Americans. The most interesting aspect of the paper is the development of the concept of "negative belief systems."

Critique [Of What Is Ethnic Pride? A Poem], Alice A. Deck

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Judith Lundin's poem successfully conveys both the elusive nature of defining ethnic pride and the certainty that it exists.

Critique [Of The Roles Of Ethnic Theater In Immigrant Communities In The United States 1850-1930], Jeffrey F. Huntsman

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Seller's broad overview of the functions of ethnic theater in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century provides a useful compilation of information hitherto scattered throughout a variety of often obscure publications. Commenting chiefly on Scandanavian, [Scandinavian] German, and Yiddish theater, she presents a glimpse into a complicated and rich social and cultural life through which American communities of immigrants established and maintained a sense of identity with their place and culture of origin and through which life in Europe was sea-changed into a different but still distinct life in America.

[Review Of] Thomas Wildcat Alford, Civilization And The Story Of The Absentee Shawnees, Elmer R. Rusco

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Thomas Wildcat Alford was born a Shawnee and died a white man. While an oversimplification, this is not an unfair summary of his memoir, ”told to” Florence Drake. A reprint of the 1936 edition, the book has a brief preface by author Angie Debo (which, however, has little information).

[Review Of] Robert L. Schuyler (Ed.), Archaeological Perspectives On Ethnicity In America: Afro-American And Asian American Culture History, Lyle Koehler

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Robert Schuyler, Associate Curator in charge of the American Historical Archaeology Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, believes that archaeologists have too often avoided working with Afro-American and Asian American sites and have not effectively used interdisciplinary sources to interpret patterns in the archaeological record. The fourteen articles in Archaeological Perspectives attempt to remedy such concerns but, perhaps in part because of the newness of this interest, the selections are of uneven quality.

An Exploratory Investigation Comparing Battered And Non-Battered Women Using The Hand Test, Debra A. Dalton

Masters Theses

The physical and mental abuse of women as wives and lovers is a largely unrecognized crime of violence just beginning to receive attention in the United States. The extent of wifebeating is difficult to determine since, although it occurs in every strata of society and every age group, it is underreported for a variety of reasons. The motives for wife abuse are complex. There are several social and psychological explanations that have been suggested as the underlying rationale for wifebeating. Psychological testing with battered women is rare and what testing that has been done has been limited to interviews and …

Educational And Career Aspirations Of Fremont High School Students, Murray Frost

Publications

The purpose of this report is to analyze the educational and career aspiration data from a survey of more than 1,000 Fremont High School students. The survey was administered in spring, 1980 and was part of a study on the needs and impact of Metropolitan Technical Community College in Omaha. Both this report and the larger study were conducted by the Center for Applied Urban Research of the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The survey questionnaire and frequency distributions of the responses are included in the Appendix of this report.

Of Another World: The Jehovah's Witnesses, William Wesley Zellner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Of Another World is an account of how the Jehovah's Witnesses recruit new members and retain these converts in the face of a skeptical world. The study also attempts to advance a theoretical model toward a generic and generalized account for conversion to a group with a devalued religious perspective. The model, developed by John Lofland in his study of the members of the Unification Church, appears with some modification, to be generalizable to the Jehovah's Witnesses. After modification, the model is still applicable to members of the Unification Church. It is argued that the social characteristics of a group …

Alienation Of Rural Youth In South Dakota, Mohammad S. Zakikhani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are two purposes of this research. The first purpose is to assess the presence of alienation in a sample of rural youth. The second purpose is to assess the relationship between the occurrence of alienation among rural youth and their plans for out- migration. The problem of concern in this project is addressed in terms of three questions. First, are rural youth alienated? Second, if alienation exists among rural youth, who is alienated? Third, if alienation exists among rural youth, does this experience relate to migration plans? Seeman's conceptualization of alienation as powerlessness, normlessness and isolation is applied in …

[Review Of] Fran Leeper Buss, La Partera: Story Of A Midwife, Caroline White

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

La Partera is the story of Jesusita Aragén, one of the last traditional midwives of northeastern New Mexico, as written from recorded interviews between the author and Jesusita. Before telling Jesusita's account of her own life, the author introduces the reader geographically, historically, and culturally to the area of San Miguel County and its main city of Las Vegas. Buss clearly shows her love and understanding of this region where she and her husband served as United Church of Christ ministers in 1975. She writes, ”the weather is dominated by striking turquoise skies and a brilliant, penetrating sun” (p. 2) …

[Review Of] Hadley Irwin, We Are Mesquakie, We Are One, Kathleen Hickok

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

We Are Mesquakie, We Are One by Hadley Irwin is the simply and sensitively told tale of a Mesquakie Indian girl who comes of age during a turbulent period in the history of her nation. In 1845, after fifteen years of treaties, the Mesquakie (sometimes also called the Fox) Indians were expelled from their lands along the Iowa River and forcibly marched to Kansas, where they were relocated on reservation lands far inferior to their own. The Mesquakies managed to avoid being acculturated into white ways, and over a period of years saved the money they got from the U.S. …

[Review Of] John Chester Miller, The Wolf By The Ears: Thomas Jefferson And Slavery, Roland L. Guyotte

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

During the past fifteen years a legion of scholars have turned their attention to the history of slavery and race relations in America. Mentioning such names as David Brion Davis, Eugene Genovese, Winthrop Jordan, Sterling Stuckey, Leon Litwack, Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman, or Willie Lee Rose simply reminds us of how far scholarhsip [scholarship] has advanced since the early 1960s. A characteristic of this work has been to shift attention back from the mid-nineteenth century to earlier times and to view American slavery in its international setting. One conclusion has been to underscore the depth of North American racism …

[Review Of] Charles C. Moskos, Jr., Greek Americans, Struggle And Success, Phylis Cancilla Martinelli

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Charles Moskos is a Greek American sociologist involved in teaching one of the few courses dealing with the subject of his book, Greek Americans. His book is a broad overview of this ethnic group, with both an historical and sociological perspective. The topic is interesting, for the Greeks are one of the few ”New Immigrant” groups to achieve rapid upward mobility without vanishing into the melting pot. Since the success of most southern and eastern European groups has been marked by a slow and uneven upward climb, the Greeks offer an instructive contrast.

[Review Of] Harold K. Schneider, The Africans: An Ethnological Account, Gary Y. Okihiro

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Schneider’s The Africans offers a provocative interpretation of African society. Unlike other introductory texts, Schneider is not concerned with an exhaustive or even representative survey of African life; rather, his concern is to put forth a non-Marxist social-cultural-economic theory of African society which would provide a broad analytical framework. He succeeds in sketching, in this comparatively slim volume, a sweeping new view of African society. (Cf., G. P. Murdock, Africa, Its Peoples and Their Culture History, New York, 1959; James L. Gibbs, Jr., ed., Peoples of Africa, New York, 1965; Paul Bohannan and Philip Curtin, Africa and Africans, Garden City, …

[Review Of] Monica Schuler, "Alas. Alas. Kongo": A Social History Of Indentured Immigration Into Jamaica. 184l-1865, David M. Johnson

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This book is intended as a footnote to the larger history of the last years of the slave trade in the Atlantic and to the efforts of the British West Indian planters to find labor substitutes for the emancipated slaves. During this period, the Royal Navy recaptured in the Atlantic some of the people exported from Africa as slaves by other colonial powers, and took them to Sierra Leone or to St. Helena. Officials from several West Indian islands tried to induce some of these recaptives to immigrate to the West Indies as indentured laborers. This book is a social …

[Review Of] Ethnic Studies: The Peoples Of America, David N. Mielke

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The market for audiovisual materials on American ethnic experiences is extremely healthy. As with the wide availability of products in any marketable area, one needs to be particularly conscious of quality, price, and usability. In selecting materials in ethnic studies the purchaser must often decide between multiethnic packages to achieve breadth, or singular ethnic packages which present the ethnic experience in some depth. The user then might attempt to creatively integrate the two.

Population Movement And Growth In Utah County, Utah 1940 To 1980, Brian W. Maxfield

Theses and Dissertations

Utah County, Utah, and more particularly the Utah Valley area, has undergone an enormous change during the last forty years. Rapid growth and urbanization brings with it the problems of urban sprawl. Controlling this sprawl is determined often times by an effective growth policy. Mapping and analyzing growth patterns and trends is a useful method in determining the effectiveness of the "growth towards the cities" policy of Utah County. Research was conducted by using maps, air photos, and field work in locating the growth history of the county.
Growth has been influenced by several factors among which are the physical, …

The Vanguard (Vol. 28, No. 10), Dec 1981, Lutheran Human Relations Association Of America

The Vanguard

Divestment. Namibia. Haitian refugees.

Those are three of the topics acted upon by the Association of Black Lutherans (ABL) at its biennial conference in Fort Worth Texas.

The conference voted to support divestment from financial institutions and companies that continue to engage in business in South Africa. The 1980 LCA convention in Seattle rejected apartheid and all other forms of racial discrimination but did not ask for divestment. Instead it asked for criteria which would help determine whether total divestment or active shareholder objections were "most effective" strategies.

Job Satisfaction Of Home Care Case Managers: An Evaluative Look At One Home Care Corporation, Scott A. Bass, Richard Rowland

Gerontology Faculty Publication Series

Senior Home Care Services — Boston III, Inc. is a six year old private non-profit corporation with an annual budget of nearly $5 million. The agency currently delivers services to approximately 2,500 functionally impaired senior citizens per month in the Boston neighborhoods of South Boston, East Dorchester/Mattapan, East Boston, Beacon Hill, West End, North End, Charlestown, and South Cove. Over 5 7% of the case management staff has worked at the agency less than one year and 92.9% of the case management staff has worked at SHC for less than two years. The high turnover rate is well known to …