Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Review focuses on a range of strategies and programs utilized for training black, Latino, and Asian educators and civic leaders. A number of efforts across the country are highlighted and summarized in this issue. Together, the articles offer important insights about the commonalities of some of the most exciting and important programs for training leaders from black, Latino, and Asian communities. The authors examine the critical elements of training and professional development programs that seem especially effective for students from these communities.

Retaining Students Of Color: The Office Of Ahana Student Programs At Boston College, Donald Brown

Trotter Review

On September 1, 1978, I assumed responsibility for what was then known as the Office of Minority Student Programs at Boston College. The charge given to me was to alter an embarrassingly high attrition rate of 83 percent for a target group of black and Latino students who had been identified by the university's Admissions Office as having high levels of motivation and potential, but who would require assistance if they were to succeed at the university.

Over the course of the past sixteen years, a great deal has transpired at Boston College. An important change was made in the …

Role Models And Mentors For Blacks At Predominantly White Campuses, Clarence G. Williams

Trotter Review

Educators must begin to revisit the topic of mentoring and role models in higher education, especially as it relates to blacks at predominantly white college campuses. There are two major facets of this topic; namely, the existence of role models and mentors for young black administrators, faculty members, and students at predominantly white campuses; and, the objectives and goals of providing role models and mentors for these individuals.

An Interview With Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, Director Of The Center For Strategic Urban Community Leadership, Rutgers University, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

This article is an interview with Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, who was the Director of the Center for Strategic Urban Community Leadership at Rutgers University at the time.

Training Leaders For Multiracial And Multi-Ethnic Collaboration, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Due to changes unfolding in urban demographics, along with continuing social and economic problems in many cities, there is a growing need for a cadre of community-based leaders to work in, and on behalf of, communities of color. Developing such leaders requires understanding of the factors that determine the nature of racial and ethnic relations between African-American, Latino, and Asian communities. Unfortunately, training programs in higher education designed to equip African-American, Latino, and Asian urban leaders to work with each other and become effective change agents in their communities have not been widely established, even at institutions with strong urban …

Educational Opportunity Programs For Students Of Color In Graduate And Professional Schools, Sheila Gregory, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

The significant underrepresentation of people of color in all occupational fields is clearly indicative of the exceptionally low percent of people of color in graduate and professional schools in America. Unless drastic actions are taken by universities across the nation to identify and recruit a significant number of students of color in undergraduate colleges it is unlikely that significant numbers of people of color will be available in the near future for potential employment.

Expanding The Pool Of Women And Minority Students Pursuing Graduate Study: The Development Of A National Model, Bernard W. Harleston

Trotter Review

The underrepresentation of women and minority students in certain disciplines in the graduate schools of American colleges and universities is a matter of great national concern. This concern has been intensified by the decline during the last fifteen years, especially from 1978 to 1988, in graduate school enrollments of all categories of American students. But, even before this most recent period of decline and during a time when the enrollment of women and minority students was at its highest (between 1968 and 1974, as a consequence, primarily, of the civil rights movement), the representation of women and minorities in the …

... And We Keep On Building Prisons: Racism, Poverty, And Challenges To The Welfare State, Paula L. Dressel

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Prison-building is argued to be an intervention of last resort when a nation loses faith in the social welfare enterprise. Recent proposals for more punitive regulations for means-tested benefits, along with the recent dramatic growth in the construction of prisons and in the size of the inmate population, indicate that we are moving as a society toward heightened levels of scapegoating and victim-blaming as a response to troubles generated by significant structural shifts in the economy. This paper analyzes the connections between poverty, punishment, and prisons, with particular emphasis on the scapegoating of people of color. The role of racism …

Affirmative Action Strategies In Elementary And Secondary Schools, Abigail Therstrom

New England Journal of Public Policy

Disproportionate numbers of black students do poorly on standardized tests; strategies to improve American education thus frequently target inner-city schools. These strategies often have an unrecognized affirmative action component. A search for more minority students or teachers is clearly an affirmative action effort. But the elimination of all tracking or competency grouping is another matter. Normally viewed as nothing more than a pedagogical strategy, it, like other affirmative action efforts, amounts to a conscious effort to alter the low-track status of minority pupils. Similarly, the demand for curricular reforms, racial sensitivity training, and more culturally "appropriate" tests, while not obviously …

Introduction, James Jennings

Trotter Review

This issue of the Trotter Review focuses on a broad range of questions and issues concerning the economic development of the urban black community. This subject is timely and important given the continuing crisis surrounding the social and economic development of black communities in urban America. Poverty, poor health, unemployment, inadequate housing, and other related concerns, will continue to plague black communities to a greater extent than other communities until effective and comprehensive economic development strategies can be developed and pursued.

This issue of the Trotter Review challenges the notion suggested by some that the pursuit of economic development strategies …

Theoretical Explanations Of Persistent Black Youth Unemployment, Rhonda M. Williams

Trotter Review

This essay reviews and briefly summarizes three theoretical models used most often to explain two decades of persistently high unemployment among black youth and declining rates of male labor-force participation: neoclassical, Keynesian/neo-Keynesian, and radical perspectives. Based on a review of these models, it offers an alternative approach to explaining and analyzing black youth unemployment.

The African-American Urban Milieu And Economic Development, Lenneal J. Henderson

Trotter Review

Economic disparity between urban white America and urban black America is becoming more pronounced, whether in central cities, suburbs, or edge cities. African-American employment prospects have declined in central cities, increased slightly in suburbs, and increased substantially for the few African Americans living and working in edge cities. William Julius Wilson cites the decline in stable, higher-paying, blue-collar employment in the industrial cities throughout America. Others identify the changing structure of metropolitan employment as characterized by more rapid professional and white-collar employment growth in suburbs and edge cities and declining employment in central cities. In his book, Cities Without Suburbs …

Myths And Realities Of Puerto Rican Poverty, Edwin Melendez

Trotter Review

The following remarks were made as the closing keynote address at the conference, "Mainland Puerto Ricans: Myths and Realities on Poverty," held at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 22 and 23, 1993.

There are two "stories" frequently cited to explain the causes of the poverty among Puerto Ricans: the first suggests that Puerto Ricans are poor because they are going through a transition as they move toward full assimilation; the second proposes that Puerto Ricans are becoming part of an urban "underclass." Neither of these explanations stands the test of reality.

Race, Economic Development, And The Role Of Transportation And Training, Joan Wallace-Benjamin

Trotter Review

As Massachusetts confronts its economic future and develops strategic plans for seizing competitive advantages, accessibility promised by proposed development plans for the transportation infrastructure must not only provide commuters with the means to get to work, but also increase the opportunity for participation in the economy for all citizens of the region. Changes in the transportation infrastructure will not ensure accessibility unless workers receive adequate training for the new types of jobs being offered. According to a recent report issued by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, authored by William P. O'Hare, "Black people who live in urbanized …

Revisiting The Question Of Reparations, James Jennings

Trotter Review

Recent congressional action to award Japanese Americans "reparations" for their internment during World War II, as well as the Florida state legislature's act to award $150,000 to black survivors of a white riot rampage of Rosewood, a black town, in 1923, has contributed to a re-emergence of the call for black reparations. Several black state and local politicians and leaders across the United States have called for legislative action that would compensate blacks for three and one half centuries of racial enslavement. The awarding of reparations to Japanese Americans is not the only precedent for indemnity to a group of …

Providing Quality Leadership In Roxbury: A Profile Of Leon T. Nelson, Harold Horton

Trotter Review

Poor leadership is often the cause for the inept functioning and eventual collapse of an organization or agency. This is because the leader sets the tone and to a great extent determines whether or not an organization will be viable. Leon T. Nelson, president of the Greater Roxbury Chamber of Commerce, has done his utmost to live up to the organization's motto, "Quod facis bene fac," which means doing whatever you do as well as you possibly can.

In a community that underwent drastic demographic changes during the 1970s and 1980s, when numerous businesses led the "white flight" to suburbia, …

The Role Of Black Political Leadership In Economic Development, Curtis Stokes

Trotter Review

One of the most striking things about the United States is the degree to which racial inequality remains a pervasive fact of life. Indeed, since the end of the 1960s the black-white gap in life chances (for example, jobs and income) has worsened for large segments of the black community. To persistently face high unemployment and declining income is especially troublesome in a capitalist economy like that in the United States, where goods and services are rationed by a harsh market and where there is, at best, a very modest social safety net. The United Nation's Human Development Report 1993, …

The African-American Business Tradition In Boston, Robert C. Hayden

Trotter Review

African Americans in Boston have been exhibiting their interest and talents in business for a long time. Those in business today are continuing a tradition that goes back to the African culture of preslavery days. Enslaved Africans who were brought to America came from a business tradition, from a culture of great traders, merchants, and craftsmen. Many enslaved blacks, in fact, purchased their freedom by marketing their skilled services and handmade products.

"Economic Development" Is Not "Community" Development: Lessons For A Mayor, Eugene "Gus" Newport

Trotter Review

Economic development is one of the most important elements of an effective community development plan. Economic development can mean jobs for the community, as well as the development of new businesses and the enhancement of a city's tax base, which provides the funds to operate the government. I had campaigned on the need for responsible alternative economic development. But, one of the first things I learned is that community development often gets misinterpreted as economic development. That is an unfortunate mistake, since the term community development has a much broader meaning, both conceptually and practically. Community development means development of …

Introduction - The Legacy Of African-American Leadership In Social Welfare, Iris Carlton-Laney

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The legacy of African-American leadership in social welfare history is only recently finding space in social work literature. The small number of professional journals in social work that publish historical articles, along with institutionalized resistance to the acknowledgement of African-Americans contributions to the development of the profession, have contributed to this dearth of scholarship. The results have been that many professionals are disinclined to perceive of African-Americans as resourceful, skilled and powerful. Instead, the theme of pathology permeates social work literature, teaching, and ultimately social work practice. The social work profession emphasizes the importance of diversity, yet fails to acknowledge …

[Review Of] Leonore Loeb Adler, Ed. Women In Cross-Cultural Perspective, Sudha Ratan

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This is a collection of essays by women writers from several countries including the United States, Great Britain, the former Soviet Union, India, China, Nigeria, and Thailand. These writers examine the interaction of biology, social role, and culture in shaping women's roles in different societies. They attempt to provide a broad overview of the conditions and the problems faced by women in their respective societies.

Explorations In Sights And Sounds

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

No abstract provided.

[Review Of] Chalmers Archer, Jr. Growing Up Black In Rural Mississippi, Aloma Mendoza

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Archer's book is a non-fictional account of the pain and anguish of one extended family's struggle and fight during the 1930s and 1940s to survive the racist south.

[Review Of] Anny Bakalian. Armenian-Americans: From Being To Feeling Armenian, Arlene Avakian

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Aside from work on the 1915 genocide of Armenians in Turkey and some work on ancient Armenia, there is precious little published work on the Armenian people. Even the Armenian genocide in which 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians in Turkey were killed has been largely ignored by the world community and was named by one scholar, "the forgotten genocide (Dickran H. Boyajian, Armenia: The Case for a Forgotten Genocide, Westwood, NJ: Educational Book Crafters, 1972). Particularly missing from the scholarship is work about contemporary Armenians in diaspora. Anny Bakalian's book begins to fill that void.

[Review Of] Gretchen M. Bataille, Ed. Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Kristin Herzog

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This book is a treasure trove. Normally, dictionaries are not meant to be read from front to back like a novel, but this one is fascinating throughout. The few works that had been available so far on American lndian women were limited in perspective, format, or accuracy. Here for the first time we see the whole breadth and depth of Native women's achievements in an astounding variety of professions, from warriors, healers, fur traders, and jewelers, to educators, attorneys, poets, and professors.

[Review Of] Charlotte H. Bruner, Ed. African Women's Writing, Larene Despain

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

African Women's Writing is a companion volume to Bruner's Unwinding Threads, first published by Heinemann ten years ago. In her "Preface" to this volume, Bruner says that this book came about because "new writers, or hitherto unpublished ones, were not only writing fiction but were recording the New Africa." Thus, only two writers reappear in this volume: Bessie Head of South Africa and Assia Djebar of Algeria, and a good many of the authors were born after 1945.

[Review Of] William L. Burton. Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments, Michael Patrick

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The title is somewhat misleading if the reader is expecting the author, William L. Burton, to include all ethnic groups in this book. The book is about foreign born ethnic soldiers in the Union Army and excludes Native Americans and Black troops. In fact, the book's major emphasis is on German and Irish soldiers of the Civil War, and largely about the steps taken to organize military units rather than about the battles these groups participated in.

[Review Of] Rafael Castillo. Distant Journeys, Julie Schrader Villegas

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Rafael Castillo's collection of short stories takes us to the borders, whether they be geographic or psychic, where ironic humor laced with existential angst always looms. His characters range from academic Chicanos negotiating identities, to gorilla freedom fighters in EI Salvador. Their commonality lies in their struggles to find self-agency and identity within a rearranged world.

[Review Of] Stewart Culin. Games Of North America Indians, Harald E. L. Prins

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

About a dozen years ago, I had the opportunity to buy Stewart Culin's classic work, Garnes of tile North American Indians, published in the 1902-1903 annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE), Smithsonian Institution. The original edition numbered 9,682 copies, of which almost half went to the United States Congress. Beautifully illustrated with more than one thousand figures (mainly drawings of recreative artifacts, plus 21 photographic plates), the heavy and gold-embossed volume was offered for $175 by an antique dealer in Maine. Because I knew the fellow, he was willing to shave $50 from the price. Although this …

[Review Of] Michael D'Innocenzo And Joseph P. Sirefman. Immigration And Ethnicity, American Society - "Melting Pot" Or "Salad Bowl?", Daniel Mitchell

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

"Salad Bowl" best describes the American Immigration experience, as the editors of this volume aptly picture it. Like a salad bar, this volume offers a variety of articles for academics and the general public to pick and choose, if interest in immigration concerns them in the least. Overall, this book is divided into three major sections, with a theme underlying each division of essays and research pieces. The offerings include: a select study of ethnic minorities and their history with varieties of social-cultural experiences of ethnic groups; a look at the impact of ethnic challenges to the United States; a …