This reader is an introduction to the relevant history, current issues, and dynamics of select minority groups in the United States. While previously written books on these topics usually confine their group coverage to African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and Pacific Islanders, and American
Indians, this volume expands the number of groups examined to include those previously noted, plus Jewish and Muslim Americans. First, the significance of globalization on individual, group and national identity is examined. Then, the social impact of immigration and the common experiences of
immigrants are considered. Later chapters review the historical, legal, and political experiences of each aforementioned group as well as their attitudes and behaviors. The two-fold objective of the book is to provide students with the prerequisite information to evaluate the importance of race,
ethnicity and religion for understanding the outcomes of American politics, in particular to help them see how the structure and operation of our political system sometimes obstructs the efforts of these groups to gain the full benefits of freedom and equal treatment promised under the American
Constitution.
One of the advantages of this reader is that the contributing authors belong to the minority groups that they write about, but they also are all credentialed experts in their field of expertise, with advanced degrees in political science, sociology, history or religion.
Thus they are able to draw upon the experiences of a group of people that they are intimately familiar with, while at the same time using the rational systematic approach of social scientists.
Introduction
1. Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Manochehr Dorraj: Change and Continuity in the Experiences of Racial, Ethnic and Religious Minorities in America
Part One: The Broader Context for Understanding Minority-Majority Relationships in the United States
2. Sheila Croucher:
Globalization and the American Nation
3. Edwina Barvosa: A World Between: Multiple Identities and the Challenges Faced by First Generation Immigrants
4. Jessica Lavariega Monforti: Immigration: Trends, Demographics, and Patterns of Political Incorporation
5. Jocelyn Sage Weiner and Clyde
Wilcox: Bridging the Cultural Divide: Accommodating Religious Diversity
Part Two: The History and Contemporary Issues and Experiences of Select Minority Groups
6. David Wilkins: "Measured Sovereignty:" The Political Experiences of Indigenous Peoples as Nations and Individuals
7.
Melanye T. Price and Gloria J. Hampton: Linked Fates, Disconnected Realities: The Post-Civil Rights African American Politics
8. Jessica Lavariega Monforti and Lisa Garcia Bedolla: The Influence of History on the Policy Positions and Partisanship of Hispanics in the United States
9. Morrison
G. Wong: Model Minority or Perpetual Foreigner? The Political Experience of Asian Americans
10. Paul Mendes-Flohr: Anti-Semitism and the Jewish-American Political Experience
11. Manochehr Dorraj: Islamophobia, the Muslim Stereotype, and the Muslim-American Political
Experience
Appendix
Editors' and Chapter Authors' Biographies
There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.
Valerie Martinez-Ebers is a Professor at the University of North Texas. Manochehr Dorraj is a Professor of Political Science at Texas Christian University.
Making Sense in the Social Sciences - Margot Northey, Lorne Tepperman and Patrizia Albanese
