Race and Ethnicity Commons^™

Free Your Mind: Contemporary Racial Attitudes And Post Racial Theory, Lakeyta M. Bonnette, Sarah M. Gershon, Precious D. Hall

Ethnic Studies Review

The inauguration of the United States first Black President has prompted mass discussions of race relations in America. It is often articulated that America is now in a post-racial society. However, the question still remains: does the election of a Black president demonstrate that America is now a "color-blind" society? To answer this question, we rely on data collected by PEW (2007). Our results suggest that white and African Americans differ significantly in the extent to which they express post-racial attitudes. Specifically, we find that whites more commonly express post-racial attitudes, claiming that racism and discrimination are rare, in opposition …

National Fantasies, Exclusion, And The Many Houses On Mango Street, Lorna L. Perez

Ethnic Studies Review

This article argues that understanding what the house in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street symbolizes is foundational to contextualizing the radical possibilities that Cisneros enacts in her work. Unlike most critics who read "the house" as referencing the title of the text, I argue that the novel is full of houses, notably the house located on Mango Street that narrator Esperanza Cordero longs to escape from, and the house away from Mango Street that she longs to one day have. By reading these two houses through Homi Bhabha's notion of the "unhomely" and Gaston Bachelard's notion of "felicitous …

Black Political Attitudes And Political Rap Music, Lakeyta M. Bonnette

Ethnic Studies Review

Many argue that political or message rap no longer exists. Scholars and critics point to rap music as a genre that is completely negative and only diminishes the progress of the Black community by offering and supporting stereotypes of African Americans (Johnson, Jackson and Gatto 1995; Carpentier, Knobloch and Zillman 2003). On the contrary, I argue that all rap music is not the same and that in fact, there is a subgenre in rap music, political rap, that discusses political issues and candidates exclusively. In this article, I proffer a criterion for identifying political rap music to demonstrate a distinction …

Scarlet-Letter Politics: The Rhetoric Of Shame In The Campaign To Unseat President Barack Hussein Obama, Myra Mendible

Ethnic Studies Review

This essay considers the politics of racial shaming as deployed against Barack Obama, arguing that it targeted "black" and "foreign" bodies as threats to the "American" body politic.

Latinos, African Americans And The Coalitional Case For A Federal Jobs Program, Alan A. Aja, William Darity Jr., Darrick Hamilton

Ethnic Studies Review

In the late 1970s, amidst growing unemployment in black and Latino communities, the newly-formed Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) supported the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in its call for full employment in the run up to the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act of 1 978. Never fully implemented, the act has been de facto an unfunded mandate for close to 40 years. Only recently has it been resurrected by a handful of lawmakers, while both discussion and support for a national jobs program has begun to gain steam in the media and the general public. With support from labor market research …

[Review Of] Mark Rifkin. When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, The History Of Sexuality, And Native Sovereignty, Lindsey Schneider

Ethnic Studies Review

Mark Rifkin's second monograph. When Did Indians Become Straight, is an intellectually rigorous and theoretically dense work that explores the relationship between Indigenous political formations and heteronormativity by presenting a literary history of sexuality that spans the last two centuries. Rifkin argues that the settler state's investment in, and enforcement of, heterosexuality as the basic organizing structure of society is a response to the fact that "Indigeneity puts the state in crisis by raising fundamental questions about the legitimacy of its (continued) existence" (37). As a result, Indigenous geopolitical alliances that exceed liberal state logics of what counts as "proper …

From Modern Rock To Postmodern Hard Rock: Cambodian Alternative Music Voices, Linda Saphan

Ethnic Studies Review

Cambodian modernity was driven by the political agenda of the Sihanouk government beginning in the 1950s, and Cambodian rock and roll emerged in the 1960s in step with Sihanouk's ambitious national modernization project. Urban rockers were primarily upper-class male youths. In. the postcolonial era rock and roll was appropriated from abroad and given a unique Cambodian sound, while today's emerging hard rock music borrows foreign sociocultural references along with the music. Postmodern Cambodia and its diaspora have seen the evolution of a more diverse music subculture of alternative voices of hard rock bands and hip-hop artists, as well as post-bourgeois …

[Review Of] H. Samy Alim And Geneva Smitherman. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, And Race In The U.S., Lisa Doris Alexander

Ethnic Studies Review

In his introduction to Articulate While Black Michael Eric Dyson frames Barack Obama as the Orator-in-Chief and the authors would certainly agree with that assessment. Alim and Smitherman argue that in order to have an open and honest discussion about race in the United States, we must look at its linguistic dimensions; we need to language race, to view the racial politics of the United States through the lens of language (xviii). This book seeks to untangle how we talk about race and what assumptions are being made based on a speaker's use of language.

Ida B. Wells And The Forces Of Democratization, Jane Duran

Ethnic Studies Review

The work of Ida B. Wells is examined not only from the standpoint of her anti-lynching writings, but from a perusal of her diaries and her efforts as a young woman. It is concluded that she exemplifies the best of the notion of a genuine democratic political force.

Table Of Contents

Ethnic Studies Review

Table of Contents for Ethnic Studies Review, Vol. 35, No. 1&2, 2012.

Abstracts

Ethnic Studies Review

Abstracts for Ethnic Studies Review, Vol. 35, No. 1&2, 2012.

Dirty Jew-Dirty Mexican: Denver's 1949 Lake Junior High School Gang Battle And Jewish Racial Identity In Colorado, Michael Lee

Ethnic Studies Review

This article details how Jews and Mexicans in Denver, Colorado came together in 1949 in the wake of a widely publicized interracial gang battle at one of the city's local middle schools. It documents the response of the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League and its involvement in a interracial neighborhood council and how Jewish racial identity in Denver was informed by the broader racial geography of the West-a racial geography that was too often shaped by contrast with Mexicans. The article also challenges the notion that Denver was relatively free of anti-Semitism. Indeed, the 1905 lynching of Jacob Wesskind …

The Geopolitical Context Of Chamorro Cultural Preservation In Guam, U.S.A., Maria-Elena D. Diaz

Ethnic Studies Review

An unincorporated Pacific Island territory of the United States, Guam has been under American rule since 1 898. While proudly "Chamorro," the descendants of indigenous islanders have been American citizens since 1 950. U.S. foreign policy, Americanization of island institutions, immigration flows from Asia and Micronesia, and economic uncertainty present challenges to the perpetuation of Chamorro culture-a syncretic blend of indigenous, Spanish, and American influences that has endured through centuries of foreign domination. As a gateway from the East to the United States and a frequent destination for Micronesian immigrants from the Compacts of Free Association, Guam regularly receives immigrants …

[Review Of] Louis G. Mendoza. Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration And The Latinoization Of The United States, Brianne Dávila

Ethnic Studies Review

Louis G. Mendoza's book, Conversations Across Our America: Talking about Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States, incorporates thirty-three conversations with forty-two Latinas/os of various nationalities in order to better understand the Latino influence in the United States. To collect this data, Mendoza rode a bicycle approximately 8,500 miles through thirty states from July to December 2007. He draws upon Ethnic Studies tradition as he was driven to conduct research that is relevant to his community. Mendoza draws upon the oral histories and lived experience of his participants to demonstrate the diverse nature of Latinas/os throughout the country. He …

Ethnicity And Impressions Of Personality Using The Five-Factor Model: Stereotyping Or Cultural Sensitivity?, Andrea Kay Cooper, David Chin Evans

Ethnic Studies Review

The current research investigates whether communities use ethnicity as a cue when forming personality impressions of others. Past research has shown that dress, smiling, hairstyle, and even facial symmetry of targets produce systematic differences in personality impressions across the domains of the Five Factor model of personality. We investigated whether the stated or apparent ethnicity of groups and individuals also produce stereotypic impressions of personality. This study compared impressions across members and non-members of the target groups and examined "cue utility" i.e. whether impressions of the groups agreed with aggregated self-impressions by group members. In all, the results clearly suggest …

Ethnic Studies Review

Ethnic Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Ten Year Trends (1992 To 2002) In Sociodemographic Predictors And Indicators Of Alcohol Abuse And Dependence Among Whites, Blacks, And Hispanics In The U.S, Raul Caetano, Jonali Baruah, Karen G. Chartier

Social Work Publications

Background

The objective of this paper is to examine 10-year trends (1992–2002) in the number and type of indicators of DSM-IV abuse and dependence among Whites, Blacks and Hispanics in the U.S.

Methods

Data are from the 1991–1992 National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey (NLAES; n = 42,862) and the 2001–2002 National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC; n = 43,093). Both surveys used multistage cluster sample procedures to select respondents 18 years of age and older from the U.S. household population.

Results

Increases in the prevalence of alcohol abuse between 1992 and 2002seem associated to a rise in …

The Dear Diane Letters And The Bintel Brief: The Experiences Of Chinese And Jewish Immigrant Women In Encountering America, Hong Cai

Ethnic Studies Review

This paper employs assimilation theory to examine the experiences of Chinese and Jewish immigrant women at similar stages of their encounters with America. By focusing on the letters in Dear Diane: Letters from Our Daughters (1983), and Dear Diane: Questions and Answers for Asian American Women (1983), and earlier in the century, the letters translated and printed in A Bintel Brief: Sixty Years of Letters from the Lower East Side to the Jewish Daily Forward (1971), this paper compares and contrasts the experiences of Chinese and Jewish women in America. It concludes that, though they have their own unique characteristics, …

Social Distances Of Whites To Racial Or Ethnic Minorities, Nina Michalikova, Philip Q. Yang .

Ethnic Studies Review

Prior research on social distance between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has focused mainly on attitudes of white Americans toward African Americans. Extending previous research, this study analyzes social distances of whites to racial or ethnic minority groups by investigating how whites feel about blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. The main hypothesis is that whites feel coolest toward blacks, warmest toward Asians, and somewhat in between toward Hispanics. The 2002 General Social Survey and ordinary least squares regression are used to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that contrary to our hypothesis, whites feel coolest toward Asians, warmest …

Dressed To Cross: Narratives Of Resistance And Integration In Sei Shônagon's The Pillow Book And Yone Noguchi's The American Diary Of A Japanese Girl, Ina Christiane Seethaler

Ethnic Studies Review

The Pillow Book by Sei Shônagon, Empress Sadako's lady in waiting from about 993-1000, offers rich detail about the meaning and power of dress during the Heian period [794-1185]. Throughout Yone Noguchi's novel The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902), Morning Glory, a newly arrived Japanese immigrant to the U.S., experiments with a multitude of different identities through clothes. Both narratives appropriate (cross-) dressing as a means of overcoming gender, cultural, and class borders. Shônagon and Noguchi engage in "authorial crossdressing" to inhabit a social, cultural, and national space onto which they only have a precarious hold. It is …

Abstracts

Ethnic Studies Review

Abstracts for Ethnic Studies Review, Vol. 34, No. 1&2, 2011.

Exchange, Conflict And Coercion: The Ritual Dynamics Of The Notting Hill Carnival Past And Present, Jennifer Edwards, J. David Knottnerus

Ethnic Studies Review

This study investigates patterns of social relationships involving the Notting Hill Carnival. Two theoretical approaches are employed elementary relations theory and structural ritualization theory - to explain how the carnival has been strategically used in very different ways by various groups to accomplish their objectives. We suggest the Notting Hill Carnival is a special collective ritual event that has played a crucial role in three quite different structured arrangements involving coercion, conflict, and exchange since its beginning in Trinidad and subsequently in London. Four time periods where distinct changes in the nature of these relationships have occurred are examined: (1) …

The Possibilities Of Asian American Citizenship: A Critical Race And Gender Analysis, Clare Ching Jen

Ethnic Studies Review

Conventionally, citizenship is understood as a legal category of membership in a national polity that ensures equal rights among its citizens. This conventional understanding, however, begs disruption when the histories and experiences of marginalized groups are brought to the fore. Equal citizenship in all its forms for marginalized populations has yet to be realized. For Asian Americans, rights presumably accorded to the legal status of citizenship have proven tenuous across different historical and political moments. Throughout U.S. history, "Asian American" or "Oriental" men and women have been designated aliens against whom white male and female citizenships have been legitimized. These …

Aesthetic And Social Community: Multicultural Poetry And The Anthologizing Of Poems, Yi-Hsuan Tso

Ethnic Studies Review

Scholars from various disciplines have explored the concept of multiculturalism from the perspectives of citizenship, recognition, representation, tokenism, constitutionalism, and other vantage points, with politics and education receiving most of the attention. I While many efforts have been made to explore these aspects of multiculturalism, its significance in poetry, particularly in poetry's composition and critique, has not been duly taken into account. Multicultural poetry designates a critical abstraction in which poetry is classified by relation to a communal culture, history, or customs. In this definition, multicultural poetry is therefore inclusive of poetry written by ethnic minorities, women, non-mainstream religious practitioners, …

Pedagogies Of Race: The Politics Of Whiteness In An African American Studies Course, Regina V. Jones

Ethnic Studies Review

This paper evaluates students' arguments for a color-blind society to avoid discussions related to the continued existence of racism in USA culture. Relatedly, this writer finds that as an black woman her status as facilitator in the classroom is directly challenged, on occasion, and that race and gender play a primary role in students' perception of classroom material and how she is perceived. Classroom discussions related to historical texts reveal that structures of domination have slanted perception of black and white people in U.S. culture. Finally, a key to open dialogue about race and racism, primarily for white students, is …

"We Are Joined Together Temporarily" The Tragic Mulatto, Fusion Monster In Lee Frost's The Thing With Two Heads, Justin Ponder

Ethnic Studies Review

In Lee Frost's 1972 film The Thing with Two Heads, a white bigot unknowingly has his head surgically grafted onto the body of a black man. From that moment on, these two personalities compete for control of their shared body with ridiculous results. Somewhere between horror and comedy, this Blaxploitation film occupies a strange place in interracial discourse. Throughout American literature, the subgenre of tragic mulatto fiction has critiqued segregation by focusing on the melodramatic lives of those divided by the color line. Most tragic mulatto scholarship has analyzed overtly political novels written by African American writers from the Reconstruction …

Ethnic Studies Review

Ethnic Studies Review

No abstract provided.

Economic Development At The Cost Of Indigenous Land, Brian Chama

Ethnic Studies Review

The notion of economic development has affected the general welfare of indigenous groups worldwide. The major conflict has been on land ownership claims on which they have occupied for many years and government quest to bring about economic development. The indigenous groups have struggled to retain their lands despite appealing to both customary and international laws. The paper argues as to whether customary law and international law are vital sources for indigenous land claims. It also presents empirical cases to land claims while making these arguments within the context of economic development.

Identity And The Legislative Decision Making Process: A Case Study Of The Maryland State Legislature, Nadia Brown

Ethnic Studies Review

Both politicians and the mass public believe that identity influences political behavior yet, political scientists have failed to fully detail how identity is salient for all political actors not just minorities and women legislators. To what extent do racial, gendered, and race/gendered identities affect the legislation decision process? To test this proposition, I examine how race and gender based identities shape the legislative decisions of Black women in comparison to White men, White women, and Black men. I find that Black men and women legislators interviewed believe that racial identity is relevant in their decision making processes, while White men …

Table Of Contents

Ethnic Studies Review

Table of Contents for Ethnic Studies Review, Vol. 34, No. 1&2, 2011.