Author: Michael Novak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351300660
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 613
Book Description
This new, enlarged edition of an influential book originally published in 1972 as The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnicsextends the author's wise and generous view of ethnicity. Its aim "is to raise consciousness about a crucial part of the American experience: to involve each reader in self-inquiry. Who, after all, are you? What history brought you to where you are? Why are you different from others?" But the point of such inquiry is civility: "The new ethnic consciousness embodied in this book delights in recognition of subtle differences in the movements of the soul. It is not a call to separatism but to self-consciousness. It does not seek division but rather accurate, mutual appreciation." This new edition contains six new essays by the author, including the acclaimed "Pluralism: A Humanistic Perspective." New, too, is Novak's comprehensive introduction, bringing the argument up to date. Novak describes how and why ethnicity has become a prominent issue in American politics. He also sharply denounces the current ideology of "multiculturalism" as a disfiguration of genuine ethnicity. "Multiculturalism is moved by the eros of Narcissus" Novak writes, "the new ethnicity is driven by the eros of unrestricted understanding." When the book first appeared, Time said that "Novak has attacked the American Dream in order to open up a possible second chapter for it." Newsweek called it "a tough-minded, provocative book which could well signal an important change in American politics." This new edition adds crucial distinctions for those seeking an intelligent path through such current-day mystifications as "multiculturalism" and "diversity." Twenty-five years ago, Novak's argument led the way in focusing on families, neighborhoods, and other "mediating institutions" of civil society. It is an argument critical to a realistic sense of national community.
Unmeltable Ethnics
Author: Michael Novak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351300660
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 613
Book Description
This new, enlarged edition of an influential book originally published in 1972 as The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnicsextends the author's wise and generous view of ethnicity. Its aim "is to raise consciousness about a crucial part of the American experience: to involve each reader in self-inquiry. Who, after all, are you? What history brought you to where you are? Why are you different from others?" But the point of such inquiry is civility: "The new ethnic consciousness embodied in this book delights in recognition of subtle differences in the movements of the soul. It is not a call to separatism but to self-consciousness. It does not seek division but rather accurate, mutual appreciation." This new edition contains six new essays by the author, including the acclaimed "Pluralism: A Humanistic Perspective." New, too, is Novak's comprehensive introduction, bringing the argument up to date. Novak describes how and why ethnicity has become a prominent issue in American politics. He also sharply denounces the current ideology of "multiculturalism" as a disfiguration of genuine ethnicity. "Multiculturalism is moved by the eros of Narcissus" Novak writes, "the new ethnicity is driven by the eros of unrestricted understanding." When the book first appeared, Time said that "Novak has attacked the American Dream in order to open up a possible second chapter for it." Newsweek called it "a tough-minded, provocative book which could well signal an important change in American politics." This new edition adds crucial distinctions for those seeking an intelligent path through such current-day mystifications as "multiculturalism" and "diversity." Twenty-five years ago, Novak's argument led the way in focusing on families, neighborhoods, and other "mediating institutions" of civil society. It is an argument critical to a realistic sense of national community.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351300660
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 613
Book Description
This new, enlarged edition of an influential book originally published in 1972 as The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnicsextends the author's wise and generous view of ethnicity. Its aim "is to raise consciousness about a crucial part of the American experience: to involve each reader in self-inquiry. Who, after all, are you? What history brought you to where you are? Why are you different from others?" But the point of such inquiry is civility: "The new ethnic consciousness embodied in this book delights in recognition of subtle differences in the movements of the soul. It is not a call to separatism but to self-consciousness. It does not seek division but rather accurate, mutual appreciation." This new edition contains six new essays by the author, including the acclaimed "Pluralism: A Humanistic Perspective." New, too, is Novak's comprehensive introduction, bringing the argument up to date. Novak describes how and why ethnicity has become a prominent issue in American politics. He also sharply denounces the current ideology of "multiculturalism" as a disfiguration of genuine ethnicity. "Multiculturalism is moved by the eros of Narcissus" Novak writes, "the new ethnicity is driven by the eros of unrestricted understanding." When the book first appeared, Time said that "Novak has attacked the American Dream in order to open up a possible second chapter for it." Newsweek called it "a tough-minded, provocative book which could well signal an important change in American politics." This new edition adds crucial distinctions for those seeking an intelligent path through such current-day mystifications as "multiculturalism" and "diversity." Twenty-five years ago, Novak's argument led the way in focusing on families, neighborhoods, and other "mediating institutions" of civil society. It is an argument critical to a realistic sense of national community.
Special Sorrows
Author: Matthew Frye Jacobson
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520233423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Special Sorrows carefully delineates the centrality of Jewish, Polish and Irish supporters in the United States to national liberation movements abroad and details how such movements shaped immigrant life in the United States.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520233423
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
Book Description
Special Sorrows carefully delineates the centrality of Jewish, Polish and Irish supporters in the United States to national liberation movements abroad and details how such movements shaped immigrant life in the United States.
Transnational America
Author: Everett Helmut Akam
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742521988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
The "melting pot" is one of the most cherished images in US culture, but does it really tell the whole story? Too often there is tension between the sense of American community and the demands of American diversity. The uniqueness of the many American ethnicities provides the roots of identity, yet recognizing those differences often makes Americans feel isolated from the whole. In this discussion, Everett Akam relies on the neglected tradition of cultural pluralism to argue that unity and individuality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, each is a vital source of American identity. He demonstrates that Americans need to acknowledge that they share much in common as Americans, while never forgetting that what sets them apart forms as great a part of who they are.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742521988
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
The "melting pot" is one of the most cherished images in US culture, but does it really tell the whole story? Too often there is tension between the sense of American community and the demands of American diversity. The uniqueness of the many American ethnicities provides the roots of identity, yet recognizing those differences often makes Americans feel isolated from the whole. In this discussion, Everett Akam relies on the neglected tradition of cultural pluralism to argue that unity and individuality are not mutually exclusive. In fact, each is a vital source of American identity. He demonstrates that Americans need to acknowledge that they share much in common as Americans, while never forgetting that what sets them apart forms as great a part of who they are.
Concepts of Ethnicity
Author: William Petersen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674157262
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
The monumental Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups is the most authoritative single source available on the history, culture, and distinctive characteristics of ethnic groups in the United States. The Dimensions of Ethnicity series is designed to make this landmark scholarship available to everyone in a series of handy paperbound student editions. Selections in this series will include outstanding articles that illuminate the social dynamics of a pluralistic nation or masterfully summarize the experience of key groups. Written by the best-qualified scholars in each field, Dimensions of Ethnicity titles will reflect the complex interplay between assimilation and pluralism that is a central theme of the American experience. The tightening and loosening of ethnic identity under changing definitions of "Americanism" is emphasized in this volume.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674157262
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
The monumental Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups is the most authoritative single source available on the history, culture, and distinctive characteristics of ethnic groups in the United States. The Dimensions of Ethnicity series is designed to make this landmark scholarship available to everyone in a series of handy paperbound student editions. Selections in this series will include outstanding articles that illuminate the social dynamics of a pluralistic nation or masterfully summarize the experience of key groups. Written by the best-qualified scholars in each field, Dimensions of Ethnicity titles will reflect the complex interplay between assimilation and pluralism that is a central theme of the American experience. The tightening and loosening of ethnic identity under changing definitions of "Americanism" is emphasized in this volume.
The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics
Author: Michael Novak
Publisher: New York : Macmillan
ISBN:
Category : Ethnic attitudes
Languages : en
Pages : 426
Book Description
Publisher: New York : Macmillan
ISBN:
Category : Ethnic attitudes
Languages : en
Pages : 426
Book Description
Creating the New Right Ethnic in 1970s America
Author: Richard Moss
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611479363
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
This work analyzes the "New Ethnicity" of the 1970s as a way of understanding America's political turn to the right in that decade. An upsurge of vocal ethnic consciousness among second-, third-, and fourth-generation Southern and Eastern Europeans, the New Ethnicity simultaneously challenged and emulated earlier identity movements such as Black Power. The movement was more complex than the historical memory of racist, reactionary white ethnic leaders suggests. The movement began with a significant grassroots effort to gain more social welfare assistance for "near poor" white ethnic neighborhoods and ease tensions between the working-class African Americans and whites who lived in close proximity to one another in urban neighborhoods. At the same time, a more militant strain of white ethnicity was created by urban leaders who sought conflict with minorities and liberals. The reassertion of ethnicity necessarily involved the invention of myths, symbols, and traditions, and this process actually served to retard the progressive strain of New Ethnicity and strengthen the position of reactionary leaders and New Right politicians who hoped to encourage racial discord and dismantle social welfare programs. Public intellectuals created a mythical white ethnic who shunned welfare, valued the family, and provided an antidote to liberal elitism and neighborhood breakdown. Corporations and publishers embraced this invented ethnic identity and codified it through consumption. Finally, politicians appropriated the rhetoric of the New Ethnicity while ignoring its demands. The image of hard-working, self-sufficient ethnics who took care of their own neighborhood problems became powerful currency in their effort to create racial division and dismantle New Deal and Great Society protections.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1611479363
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
This work analyzes the "New Ethnicity" of the 1970s as a way of understanding America's political turn to the right in that decade. An upsurge of vocal ethnic consciousness among second-, third-, and fourth-generation Southern and Eastern Europeans, the New Ethnicity simultaneously challenged and emulated earlier identity movements such as Black Power. The movement was more complex than the historical memory of racist, reactionary white ethnic leaders suggests. The movement began with a significant grassroots effort to gain more social welfare assistance for "near poor" white ethnic neighborhoods and ease tensions between the working-class African Americans and whites who lived in close proximity to one another in urban neighborhoods. At the same time, a more militant strain of white ethnicity was created by urban leaders who sought conflict with minorities and liberals. The reassertion of ethnicity necessarily involved the invention of myths, symbols, and traditions, and this process actually served to retard the progressive strain of New Ethnicity and strengthen the position of reactionary leaders and New Right politicians who hoped to encourage racial discord and dismantle social welfare programs. Public intellectuals created a mythical white ethnic who shunned welfare, valued the family, and provided an antidote to liberal elitism and neighborhood breakdown. Corporations and publishers embraced this invented ethnic identity and codified it through consumption. Finally, politicians appropriated the rhetoric of the New Ethnicity while ignoring its demands. The image of hard-working, self-sufficient ethnics who took care of their own neighborhood problems became powerful currency in their effort to create racial division and dismantle New Deal and Great Society protections.
From Paesani to White Ethnics
Author: Stefano Luconi
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791448571
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Examines the transformations of Italian American ethnic identity in twentieth-century Philadelphia.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791448571
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
Examines the transformations of Italian American ethnic identity in twentieth-century Philadelphia.
Till Death Do Us Part
Author: Allan Amanik
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496827929
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Contributions by Allan Amanik, Kelly B. Arehart, Sue Fawn Chung, Kami Fletcher, Rosina Hassoun, James S. Pula, Jeffrey E. Smith, and Martina Will de Chaparro Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed explores the tendency among most Americans to separate their dead along communal lines rooted in race, faith, ethnicity, or social standing and asks what a deeper exploration of that phenomenon can tell us about American history more broadly. Comparative in scope, and regionally diverse, chapters look to immigrants, communities of color, the colonized, the enslaved, rich and poor, and religious minorities as they buried kith and kin in locales spanning the Northeast to the Spanish American Southwest. Whether African Americans, Muslim or Christian Arabs, Indians, mestizos, Chinese, Jews, Poles, Catholics, Protestants, or various whites of European descent, one thing that united these Americans was a drive to keep their dead apart. At times, they did so for internal preference. At others, it was a function of external prejudice. Invisible and institutional borders built around and into ethnic cemeteries also tell a powerful story of the ways in which Americans have negotiated race, culture, class, national origin, and religious difference in the United States during its formative centuries.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496827929
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285
Book Description
Contributions by Allan Amanik, Kelly B. Arehart, Sue Fawn Chung, Kami Fletcher, Rosina Hassoun, James S. Pula, Jeffrey E. Smith, and Martina Will de Chaparro Till Death Do Us Part: American Ethnic Cemeteries as Borders Uncrossed explores the tendency among most Americans to separate their dead along communal lines rooted in race, faith, ethnicity, or social standing and asks what a deeper exploration of that phenomenon can tell us about American history more broadly. Comparative in scope, and regionally diverse, chapters look to immigrants, communities of color, the colonized, the enslaved, rich and poor, and religious minorities as they buried kith and kin in locales spanning the Northeast to the Spanish American Southwest. Whether African Americans, Muslim or Christian Arabs, Indians, mestizos, Chinese, Jews, Poles, Catholics, Protestants, or various whites of European descent, one thing that united these Americans was a drive to keep their dead apart. At times, they did so for internal preference. At others, it was a function of external prejudice. Invisible and institutional borders built around and into ethnic cemeteries also tell a powerful story of the ways in which Americans have negotiated race, culture, class, national origin, and religious difference in the United States during its formative centuries.
Ethnic Los Angeles
Author: Roger Waldinger
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610445473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Book Description
Since 1965 more immigrants have come to Los Angeles than anywhere else in the United States. These newcomers have rapidly and profoundly transformed the city's ethnic makeup and sparked heated debate over their impact on the region's troubled economy. Ethnic Los Angeles presents a multi-investigator study of L.A.'s immigrant population, exploring the scope, characteristics, and consequences of ethnic transition in the nation's second most populous urban center. Using the wealth of information contained in the U.S. censuses of 1970, 1980, and 1990, essays on each of L.A.'s major ethnic groups tell who the immigrants are, where they come from, the skills they bring and their sources of employment, and the nature of their families and social networks. The contributors explain the history of legislation and economic change that made the city a magnet for immigration, and compare the progress of new immigrants to those of previous eras. Recent immigrants to Los Angeles follow no uniform course of adaptation, nor do they simply assimilate into the mainstream society. Instead, they have entered into distinct niches at both the high and low ends of the economic spectrum. While Asians and Middle Easterners have thrived within the medical and technical professions, low-skill newcomers from Central America provide cheap labor in light manufacturing industries. As Ethnic Los Angeles makes clear, the city's future will depend both on how well its economy accommodates its diverse population, and on how that population adapts to economic changes. The more prosperous immigrants arrived already possessed of advanced educations and skills, but what does the future hold for less-skilled newcomers? Will their children be able to advance socially and economically, as the children of previous immigrants once did? The contributors examine the effect of racial discrimination, both in favoring low-skilled immigrant job seekers over African Americans, and in preventing the more successful immigrants and native-born ethnic groups from achieving full economic parity with whites. Ethnic Los Angeles is an illuminating portrait of a city whose unprecedented changes are sure to be replicated in other urban areas as new concentrations of immigrants develop. Backed by detailed demographic information and insightful analyses, this volume engages all of the issues that are central to today's debates about immigration, ethnicity, and economic opportunity in a post-industrial urban society.
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610445473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Book Description
Since 1965 more immigrants have come to Los Angeles than anywhere else in the United States. These newcomers have rapidly and profoundly transformed the city's ethnic makeup and sparked heated debate over their impact on the region's troubled economy. Ethnic Los Angeles presents a multi-investigator study of L.A.'s immigrant population, exploring the scope, characteristics, and consequences of ethnic transition in the nation's second most populous urban center. Using the wealth of information contained in the U.S. censuses of 1970, 1980, and 1990, essays on each of L.A.'s major ethnic groups tell who the immigrants are, where they come from, the skills they bring and their sources of employment, and the nature of their families and social networks. The contributors explain the history of legislation and economic change that made the city a magnet for immigration, and compare the progress of new immigrants to those of previous eras. Recent immigrants to Los Angeles follow no uniform course of adaptation, nor do they simply assimilate into the mainstream society. Instead, they have entered into distinct niches at both the high and low ends of the economic spectrum. While Asians and Middle Easterners have thrived within the medical and technical professions, low-skill newcomers from Central America provide cheap labor in light manufacturing industries. As Ethnic Los Angeles makes clear, the city's future will depend both on how well its economy accommodates its diverse population, and on how that population adapts to economic changes. The more prosperous immigrants arrived already possessed of advanced educations and skills, but what does the future hold for less-skilled newcomers? Will their children be able to advance socially and economically, as the children of previous immigrants once did? The contributors examine the effect of racial discrimination, both in favoring low-skilled immigrant job seekers over African Americans, and in preventing the more successful immigrants and native-born ethnic groups from achieving full economic parity with whites. Ethnic Los Angeles is an illuminating portrait of a city whose unprecedented changes are sure to be replicated in other urban areas as new concentrations of immigrants develop. Backed by detailed demographic information and insightful analyses, this volume engages all of the issues that are central to today's debates about immigration, ethnicity, and economic opportunity in a post-industrial urban society.
Making Americans
Author: Desmond S. King
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039629
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
In the nineteenth century, virtually anyone could get into the United States. But by the 1920s, U.S. immigration policy had become a finely filtered regime of selection. Desmond King looks at this dramatic shift, and the debates behind it, for what they reveal about the construction of an American identity. Specifically, the debates in the three decades leading up to 1929 were conceived in terms of desirable versus undesirable immigrants. This not only cemented judgments about specific European groups but reinforced prevailing biases against groups already present in the United States, particularly African Americans, whose inferior status and second-class citizenship--enshrined in Jim Crow laws and embedded in pseudo-scientific arguments about racial classifications--appear to have been consolidated in these decades. Although the values of different groups have always been recognized in the United States, King gives the most thorough account yet of how eugenic arguments were used to establish barriers and to favor an Anglo-Saxon conception of American identity, rejecting claims of other traditions. Thus the immigration controversy emerges here as a significant precursor to recent multicultural debates. Making Americans shows how the choices made about immigration policy in the 1920s played a fundamental role in shaping democracy and ideas about group rights in America.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039629
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
In the nineteenth century, virtually anyone could get into the United States. But by the 1920s, U.S. immigration policy had become a finely filtered regime of selection. Desmond King looks at this dramatic shift, and the debates behind it, for what they reveal about the construction of an American identity. Specifically, the debates in the three decades leading up to 1929 were conceived in terms of desirable versus undesirable immigrants. This not only cemented judgments about specific European groups but reinforced prevailing biases against groups already present in the United States, particularly African Americans, whose inferior status and second-class citizenship--enshrined in Jim Crow laws and embedded in pseudo-scientific arguments about racial classifications--appear to have been consolidated in these decades. Although the values of different groups have always been recognized in the United States, King gives the most thorough account yet of how eugenic arguments were used to establish barriers and to favor an Anglo-Saxon conception of American identity, rejecting claims of other traditions. Thus the immigration controversy emerges here as a significant precursor to recent multicultural debates. Making Americans shows how the choices made about immigration policy in the 1920s played a fundamental role in shaping democracy and ideas about group rights in America.