The Economic Basis of Ethnic Solidarity PDF Download

Author: Edna Bonacich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520326725
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1980.

Author: Edna Bonacich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Bonacich and Modell explore class and ethnic behavior as reflected in the history of Japanese Americans in the Unites States. They demonstrate that involvement in certain types of self-consciously ethnic business structures supports the development and maintenance of Japanese American ethnic solidarity. The authors question the idea of ethnicity as a natural or primordial bond; they accept that ethnicity reflects social and political decisions; ethnic solidarity and antagonisms are socially constructed. Moreover, economic factors play a great role in maintenance or dissolution of ethnic bonds, and ethnic groups often function as economic-interest groups; when they no longer do so, they dissolve. Participation in wider society and professions diminishes such ethnicity. The middleman-minority thesis is used to interpret the experience of pre- and post-war Japanese Americans. The model comprises three traits: social and economic characteristics and society reactions. This study emphasizes the importance of a concentration in trade for creation and perpetuation of ethnicity. The middleman-minority model applies best to the first (Issei) generation of Japanese Americans. This generation had a peculiar economic position consisting of family-centered, non-contractual oriented firms doing business (primarily agricultural related) in the midst of a capitalist economy. Owners of these ethnic firms faced open hostility and discrimination, which drove them to develop and preserve their own distinctive ethnic associations and outlook. Characteristic features of Japanese American small businesses are identified. Using the structural framework of the "middleman minority," the authors explain the decreasing ethnic identity among second generation Japanese Americans in terms of the decreasing importance of small business as an economic base for the group, as members of this generation tended to move out into the professions. Using data from the Japanese American Research Project, the researcj examines the postwar development of this ethnic group to see to what degree pre-war economic forms have been reestablished among the second generation of Japanese Americans and the implications for their internal social organization and integration with the outside community. The pre-war ethnic economy was most revived by the oldest Japanese Americans. A division was found in the second (Nisei) generation, who are divided in economic orientation between small business and the professions. Degree of Nisei ethnicity and education are strongly related to birth date. The more educated Nisei moved into professions. Three important aspects of ethnic community are examined for the mid-1960s. Close family and kin relationships, and strong formal and informal ethnic associations, support and are supported by the middleman-minority ethnic economy. There is only a weak, but positive relationship between participation in small business and ethnic socialization and values; the relation is stronger for religion. The Sansei (children of the Nisei) show an even greater shift toward the professions than their parents. The study strongly departs from the "success story" or "model minority" approach of other ethnic research. Concludes that ethnic solidarity is a historical phenomenon; when ethnic minorities become like the majority economically, preserving their distinctiveness is difficult. (TNM).

Author: Pyong Gap Min
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443985
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Generations of immigrants have relied on small family businesses in their pursuit of the American dream. This entrepreneurial tradition remains highly visible among Korean immigrants in New York City, who have carved out a thriving business niche for themselves operating many of the city's small grocery stores and produce markets. But this success has come at a price, leading to dramatic, highly publicized conflicts between Koreans and other ethnic groups. In Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival, Pyong Gap Min takes Korean produce retailers as a case study to explore how involvement in ethnic businesses—especially where it collides with the economic interests of other ethnic groups—powerfully shapes the social, cultural, and economic unity of immigrant groups. Korean produce merchants, caught between white distributors, black customers, Hispanic employees, and assertive labor unions, provide a unique opportunity to study the formation of group solidarity in the face of inter-group conflicts. Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival draws on census and survey data, interviews with community leaders and merchants, and a review of ethnic newspaper articles to trace the growth and evolution of Korean collective action in response to challenges produce merchants received from both white suppliers and black customers. When Korean produce merchants first attempted to gain a foothold in the city's economy, they encountered pervasive discrimination from white wholesale suppliers at Hunts Point Market in the Bronx. In response, Korean merchants formed the Korean Produce Association (KPA), a business organization that gradually evolved into a powerful engine for promoting Korean interests. The KPA used boycotts, pickets, and group purchasing to effect enduring improvements in supplier-merchant relations. Pyong Gap Min returns to the racially charged events surrounding black boycotts of Korean stores in the 1990s, which were fueled by frustration among African Americans at a perceived economic invasion of their neighborhoods. The Korean community responded with rallies, political negotiations, and publicity campaigns of their own. The disappearance of such disputes in recent years has been accompanied by a corresponding reduction in Korean collective action, suggesting that ethnic unity is not inevitable but rather emerges, often as a form of self-defense, under certain contentious conditions. Solidarity, Min argues, is situational. This important new book charts a novel course in immigrant research by demonstrating how business conflicts can give rise to demonstrations of group solidarity. Ethnic Solidarity for Economic Survival is at once a sophisticated empirical analysis and a riveting collection of stories—about immigration, race, work, and the American dream.

Author: Marta López-Garza
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804780209
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
Experiencing both the enormous benefits and the serious detriments of globalization and economic restructuring, Southern California serves as a magnet for immigrants from many parts of the world. This volume advances an emerging body of work that centers this region's future on the links between the two fastest-growing racial groups in California, Asians and Latinos, and the economic and social mainstream of this important sector of the global economy. The contributors to the anthology—scholars and community leaders with social science, urban planning, and legal backgrounds—provide a multi-faceted analysis of gender, class, and race relations. They also examine various forms of immigrant economic participation, from low-wage workers to entrepreneurs and capital investors. Asian and Latino Immigrants in a Restructuring Economy documents the entrenchment of various immigrant communities in the socio-political and economic fabric of United States society and these communities' role in transforming the Los Angeles region.

Author: Rhonda F. Levine
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9780742509931
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This book documents a little-known aspect of the Jewish experience in America. It is a fascinating account of how a group of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany came to dominate cattle dealing in south central New York and maintain a Jewish identity even while residing in small towns and villages that are overwhelmingly Christian. The book pays particular attention to the unique role played by women in managing the transition to the United States, in helping their husbands accumulate capital, and in recreating a German Jewish community. Yet Levine goes further than her analysis of German Jewish refugees. She also argues that it is possible to explain the situations of other immigrant and ethnic groups using the structure/network/identity framework that arises from this research. According to Levine, situating the lives of immigrants and refugees within the larger context of economic and social change, but without losing sight of the significance of social networks and everyday life, shows how social structure, class, ethnicity, and gender interact to account for immigrant adaptation and mobility.

Author: Jason Kaufman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195148589
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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"The Golden Age of Fraternity was a unique time in American history. In the forty years between the Civil War and the onset of World War I, more than half of all Americans participated in clubs, fraternities, militias, and mutual benefit societies. Today this period is held up as a model for how we might revitalize contemporary civil society. But was America's associational culture really as communal as has been assumed? What if these much-admired voluntary organizations served parochial concerns rather than the common good? Jason Kaufman sets out to dispel many of the myths about the supposed civic-mindedness of "joining" while bringing to light the hidden lessons of associationalism's history. Relying on deep archival research in city directories, club histories, and membership lists, Kaufman shows that organizational activity in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries revolved largely around economic self-interest rather than civic engagement. And far from spurring concern for the collective good, fraternal societies, able to pick and choose members at will, fostered exclusion and further exacerbated the competitive interests of a society divided by race, class, ethnicity, and religion. Tracing both the rise and the decline of American associational life - a decline that began immediately after World War I, much earlier than previously thought - Kaufman argues persuasively that the end of fraternalism was a good thing. Illuminating both broad historical shifts - immigration, urbanization, and the disruptions of war, among them - and smaller, overlooked contours, such as changes in the burial and life insurance industries, Kaufman has written a bracing revisionist history. Eloquently rebutting those hailing America's associational past and calling for a return to old-style voluntarism, For the Common Good? will change the terms of debate about the history - and the future - of American civil society."--Publisher's description.

Author: Jesse O. McKee
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742500341
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Thoroughly revised and updated in this second edition, this clear and thoughtful text offers a geographical analysis of the history of U.S. immigration patterns and the development of selected ethnic minority groups. The book focuses especially on their origin, diffusion, socioeconomic characteristics, and settlement patterns within the United States. The book sets the context with opening chapters that discuss migration theory and the history of U.S. migration from 1607 to the present, including major U.S. immigration legislation, and provide a background for the time of entry, volume, and spatial distribution of various groups. Case-study chapters then analyze each of those groups, including Native Americans and those of African, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, Jewish, Japanese, Chinese, and Indochinese origin. The final section of the book explores rural and urban ethnic enclaves, focusing especially on immigrant groups of European heritage and their impacts on the cultural landscape of the United States.

Author: Melvin L. Oliver
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415918473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Black Wealth/White Wealthdemonstrates how an analysis of private wealth uncovers a revealing story about race in America. An examination of how assets are created, expanded and preserved reveals a deep economic divide between blacks and whites. Charting the changing structure of inequality over many generations, the authors examine how and why many blacks have had difficulty accumulating wealth and opportunities for a better life. In combining quantitative data from over 12,000 households and interviews with a range of black and white families, the racial face of wealth in America is measured and conceptualized.

Author: Jere Takahashi
Publisher: Temple University Press
ISBN: 9781566396592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
To talk about "political style" is to acknowledge a dynamic and somewhat improvisational approach to politics; it is to acknowledge the need to work within the limits presented by tradition, resources, and social context. To speak of "political style" in relation to a particular ethnic group is to recognize their agency in shaping their history.In Nisei/Sansei: Shifting Japanese American Identities and Politics, Jere Takahashi challenges studies that describe the Japanese American community's essentially linear process toward assimilation into U.S. society. As he develops a complex and nuanced account of Japanese American life, he shows that a diversity of opinion and debate about effective political strategy characterized each generation of Japanese Americans. As he investigates the ways in which each generation attempted to advance its interests and concerns, he uncovers the struggles over key issues and introduces the community activists whose voices have been muffled by assimilation narratives.Takahashi's approach to political style includes the ways that Japanese Americans mustered and managed political resources, but also encompasses their on-going efforts at self-definition. His focus, then, is on personal and social action; on individual activists, power, and ideological shifts within the community, and generational change. In telling the story of the community's complex and dynamic relationship to the larger society, he highlights individuals who contributed to the struggles and debates that paved the way for the emergence of a distinct Japanese American identity. Author note: Jere Takahashi teaches Asian American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0081022964
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 7278

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Book Description
International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Second Edition, Fourteen Volume Set embraces diversity by design and captures the ways in which humans share places and view differences based on gender, race, nationality, location and other factors—in other words, the things that make people and places different. Questions of, for example, politics, economics, race relations and migration are introduced and discussed through a geographical lens. This updated edition will assist readers in their research by providing factual information, historical perspectives, theoretical approaches, reviews of literature, and provocative topical discussions that will stimulate creative thinking. Presents the most up-to-date and comprehensive coverage on the topic of human geography Contains extensive scope and depth of coverage Emphasizes how geographers interact with, understand and contribute to problem-solving in the contemporary world Places an emphasis on how geography is relevant in a social and interdisciplinary context