Sociology Commons^™

[Review Of] Herman J. Viola. After Columbus: The Smithsonian Chronicle Of The North American Indians, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In a factual but impassioned introduction, George P. Horse Capture writes a fitting foreword to this work on the history of Native Americans through the last five hundred years. Through the growing number of non-Indians honestly writing about the indigenous peoples, a mass audience is finally learning about the tragic history and the depressed conditions of the tribes. He praises the work of Dee Brown and of Alvin Josephy, Jr., as well as the author of the present work, Herman Viola.

[Review Of] Sylvia Watanabe And Carol Bruchac. Home To Stay: Asian American Women's Fiction, Mary Young

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Frank Chin, a Chinese American playwright and essayist has written, "no one . . . was going to tell them [Asian Americans] that America not Asia was their home, that English was their language . . . ." The women writers collected in this volume are claiming America as their home and English as their language. These writers fashion and refashion the American experience from their ethnic perspective. This publication brings together many Asian American women writers in one volume. The contributors are not only of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino ancestry, but also of Malaysian, Vietnamese, Asian Indian, and Pakistani …

[Review Of] Derek Walcott. Omeros, Cortland P. Auser

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Omeros is indeed a poetic epic and as such stands foremost in Walcott's outstanding writing career. The quality of the poetry in this volume reveals why he is a great practitioner of poetry writing in the English-speaking world.

[Review Of] Jack Weatherford. Native Roots: How The Indians Enriched America, David M. Gradwohl

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

This volume and Weatherford's penultimate book (Indian Givers: How the Indians of the Americas Transformed the World, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1988) discuss in detail the contributions of Native American populations to the Old World and to the culture of the invaders who ultimately conquered the New World. Both books are timely in terms of the current hoopla concerning the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's arrival on Caribbean shores. They both put the lie to the idea that acculturation is a one-way street. Native Roots additionally indicates the tenacity of many American Indian traditions in surviving centuries of attempts at forced …

[Review Of] Vernon J. Williams. From A Caste To A Minority: Changing Attitudes Of American Sociologists Towards Afro-Americans, Cary D. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Attitudes towards specific racial minorities have been central to the history of the United States. These attitudes have influenced the development of social and cultural institutions, they have determined the structure of our communities, and they have affected our laws and our politics. Given the centrality of race in American culture, it is surprising that until the second half of the twentieth century there was little effort to examine systematically the role of race in US history, or to examine changing attitudes towards race; and the efforts that were made rarely made it into the mainstream of American historiography.

Table Of Contents

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Table of contents for Explorations in Sights and Sounds, Number 12, Summer, 1992

[Review Of] Joseph Hobbs. Bedouin Life In The Egyptian Wilderness, Torrance Stephens

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

It is not often that a person can pick up a book and read it with clarity and understanding, especially ethnographic materials that attempt to describe peoples of various cultural orientations. Joseph Hobbs has managed to accomplish this task in an enlightening manner.

[Review Of] Julie Cruikshank. In Collaboration With Angela Sidney. Kitty Smith. And Annie Ned. Life Lived Like A Story: Life Stories Of Three Yukon Native Elders, Laurie Lisa

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Life Lived Like a Story, a volume in the American Indian Lives Series, contains the transcribed autobiographies of three women of the Yukon: Angela Sidney, Kitty Smith, and Annie Ned. In her introduction, Cruikshank states that the book is "based on the premise that life-history investigation provides a model for research." To meet this goal, Cruikshank's methodology depended upon ongoing collaborations between interviewer and interviewees. The three remarkable women who share their life stories in this volume were all raised on the inland side of the high country frontier separating coastal Tlingit and interior Athapaskans; all can claim both Athapaskan …

[Review Of] Cheryl A. Wall, Ed. Changing Our Own Words: Essays On Criticism, Theory, And Writing By Black Women, Angela M. S. Nelson

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Cheryl Wall's edited volume, Changing Our Own Words, is comprised of the proceedings of a conference held at Rutgers University in October 1987 entitled "Changing Our Own Words: A Symposium on Criticism, Theory, and Literature by Black Women." A group of scholars and critics -- who included Abena P. A. Busia, Barbara Christian, Mae Gwendolyn Henderson, Gloria T. Bull, Deborah E. McDowell, Valerie Smith, Hortense J. Spillers, Claudia Tate, Cheryl A. Wall, and Susan Willis -- were asked to reflect upon such questions as: What are the most fruitful contexts for the analysis of writing by black women? What can …

Explorations In Sights And Sounds

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

No abstract provided.

Mature Women Students: Effects Of The Gender Division Of Labor On Education, Sarah Jane Brubaker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis seeks to better understand the trend toward mature women college students as impacted by the gender division of labor. It is based on qualitative research involving in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten African-American and eleven white mature women students age 30 and over enrolled at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The interview questions focus on two main decision points in the lives of mature women students. The first is defined as the point at which they chose a course of action, other than attending college, after high school, or when they left college. The second is defined as the point at …

The Social Construction Of Abortion, Alexis Lora Ruffin

Theses and Dissertations

The essential socio-political question abortion raises is twofold: within whose legitimate province is the abortion decision to be made and what are the salient factors in determining subsequent resolutions over access. The answers speak to perceptions of legitimate authority, which are fundamental to the social construction of abortion.

The disparate literature on abortion was examined to develop a typology of perspectives on abortion. Theories from feminist sociology and social psychology were employed to examine the impact abortion access and the subsequent negotiation over legitimate authority have on the social order. The underlying hypothesis of this research is that abortion is …

[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] William Oandasan. Moving Inland: A Cycle Of Lyrics, Abby H. Werlock

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

William Oandasan, a member of the Uki [Yuki] tribe, demonstrates the tension between the new and the old, attempting to reconcile a traditional closeness to the land and to the past with apparently incongruent modern phenomena.

Explorations In Sights And Sounds

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

No abstract provided.

[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] 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] Troy Duster. Backdoor To Eugenics, Steven J. Gold

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

During the first decades of this century, the theory of eugenics, which applied social Darwinism to human beings, was an influential movement. Its major contention was that Northern Europeans were genetically superior to other groups-Southern and Eastern Europeans, Asians, blacks and Jews. Therefore, the presence of these "inferior" groups in the U.S. should be limited, both by constraining the growth of their populations and by restricting their entry into the nation. Rooted in "science," eugenics was embraced by prominent intellectuals of the era, including Harvard psychologist William McDougall and University of Wisconsin sociologist E. A. Ross. The power of this …

[Review Of] Marjorie Harness Goodwin. He-Said-She-Said: Talk As Social Organization Among Black Children, Maryln Zupicich

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The author, acting both as ethnographer and sociolinguist, recorded conversations of black children in a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia over a period of one-and-a-half years. She acted as observer of children's games and talk as they interacted with their peers in their after school surroundings. Goodwin argues that peer setting provides the best opportunity to observe children as they develop social organization, and she challenges the traditional view of anthropology that perceives children as being in the process of internalizing adult values in order to integrate into the social world.

[Review Of] A. Roy Eckardt. Black, Woman, Jew: Three Wars For Human Liberation, Suzanne Stutman

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In this book, A. Roy Eckardt uses his anger against oppression in its various forms and his extensive knowledge of the literatures in the field to craft a work of the first magnitude. He views oppression, as he explains, from the perspective of a "white, male gentile ... a privileged minority: the nonoppressed of the world." Yet his honesty and compassion for the oppressed represented in this study take him into the center of the battle which he wages: the battle for human liberation. His new book is, he explains, a sequel to For Righteousness' Sake: Contemporary Moral Philosophies, published …

Are You An Emissary Of Jesus Christ?: Justice, The Catholic Church And The Chicano Movement, Alberto L. Pulido

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

In 1969, Católicos Por La Raza (CPLR) emerged as an ethnic "protest group" against the "injustices" of the American Catholic Church in San Diego and Los Angeles, California. CPLR was critical of the Catholic hierarchy's inconsistencies in relation to the Chicano community. As one of the wealthiest institutions, the Catholic Church was doing very little for a community that made up the largest part of the Church's membership. For CPLR, the Christian message of "justice" was not practiced by the leaders of the Church. In Los Angeles, Chicanos were asking why the Archdiocese chose to close a high school in …

Table Of Contents

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Table of contents for Explorations in Ethnic Studies, Number 14, Issue 1, 1991

Contributors

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

Notes on contributors to Explorations in Ethnic Studies, Volume 14, Issue 1, 1991

The Law And Policy Of Civil Rights: A Tactical Perspective For Educators, Le Von E. Wilson, George Steven Swan

Explorations in Ethnic Studies

This article is presented to share with fellow professional teacher-scholars the preparation of a freshly-formulated teaching project. The aim of this project is to provide a classroom public policy study program wherein students debate policy issues in a carefully structured and professional fashion. This structure encompasses hands-on study of actually-litigated minority set-aside/affirmative action controversies before the U.S. Supreme Court, with every student always utilizing the primary documents (the litigants' briefs) used by the Supreme Court Justices themselves. These briefs provide readymade resources fueling policy debate on either side of each case.

[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] Nasario Garcia. Recuerdos De Los Viejitos, Tales Of The Rio Puerco, Glen M. Kraig

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The editor indicated in his foreword that he had several purposes for collecting and assembling the sixty-four stories that comprise this book. First, he had noted that little had been written concerning the history of the Rio Puerco region of New Mexico, and the little that had been written had not included the actual first person narratives of the people who had lived there. These, the collector believed, the "... vibrant oral history and literature from a previously unrecorded area can now further enrich the age old cultural heritage of Hispanic New Mexico."

[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] Christie Davies. Ethnic Humor Around The World: A Comparative Analysis, Alleen Nilsen, Don Nilsen

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

If you want to know what's in Davies' Ethnic Humor Around the World, you'll need to devote some time and energy to the matter. It's a serious study-not the kind you can read at the bus stop or listen to in bits and pieces on a cassette or read excerpted in a popular magazine. Nevertheless, this is a must-read for anyone who's tempted to make such blanket statements as the one that climaxes a currently popular video tape on cultural diversity: "There is no place in business or academics for ethnic joking."

[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] 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, …