In the Shadow of Race
Jews, Latinos, and Immigrant Politics in the United States
9780226319230
9780226319223
In the Shadow of Race
Jews, Latinos, and Immigrant Politics in the United States
Race in the United States has long been associated with heredity and inequality while ethnicity has been linked to language and culture. In the Shadow of Race recovers the history of this entrenched distinction and the divisive politics it engenders.
Victoria Hattam locates the origins of ethnicity in the New York Zionist movement of the early 1900s. In a major revision of widely held assumptions, she argues that Jewish activists identified as ethnics not as a means of assimilating and becoming white, but rather as a way of defending immigrant difference as distinct from race—rooted in culture rather than body and blood. Eventually, Hattam shows, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Census Bureau institutionalized this distinction by classifying Latinos as an ethnic group and not a race. But immigration and the resulting population shifts of the last half century have created a political opening for reimagining the relationship between immigration and race. How to do so is the question at hand.
In the Shadow of Race concludes by examining the recent New York and Los Angeles elections and the 2006 immigrant rallies across the country to assess the possibilities of forging a more robust alliance between immigrants and African Americans. Such an alliance is needed, Hattam argues, to more effectively redress the persistent inequalities in American life.
Victoria Hattam locates the origins of ethnicity in the New York Zionist movement of the early 1900s. In a major revision of widely held assumptions, she argues that Jewish activists identified as ethnics not as a means of assimilating and becoming white, but rather as a way of defending immigrant difference as distinct from race—rooted in culture rather than body and blood. Eventually, Hattam shows, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Census Bureau institutionalized this distinction by classifying Latinos as an ethnic group and not a race. But immigration and the resulting population shifts of the last half century have created a political opening for reimagining the relationship between immigration and race. How to do so is the question at hand.
In the Shadow of Race concludes by examining the recent New York and Los Angeles elections and the 2006 immigrant rallies across the country to assess the possibilities of forging a more robust alliance between immigrants and African Americans. Such an alliance is needed, Hattam argues, to more effectively redress the persistent inequalities in American life.
288 pages | 2 color plates, 9 line drawings, 4 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2007
History: Urban History
Political Science: Race and Politics
Sociology: Race, Ethnic, and Minority Relations
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Figures
Preface
1 Languages of Race—Politics of Difference
2 From “Historic Races” to Ethnicity:
Disarticulating Race, Culture, Nation
3 Fixing Race, Unfixing Ethnicity:
New York Zionists and Ethnicity
4 Are Jews a Race? Are Mexicans White?:
The State and Ethnicity
5 Latinos: The New Ethnics?:
Rereading Statistical Policy Directive 15
6 Shadowed by Race:
Latinos in New York City Politics, 2001 and Beyond
7 Dismantling the Race-Ethnicity Distinction:
Reconfiguring Race, Power, and Descent
Appendix A
Appendix B
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
1 Languages of Race—Politics of Difference
2 From “Historic Races” to Ethnicity:
Disarticulating Race, Culture, Nation
3 Fixing Race, Unfixing Ethnicity:
New York Zionists and Ethnicity
4 Are Jews a Race? Are Mexicans White?:
The State and Ethnicity
5 Latinos: The New Ethnics?:
Rereading Statistical Policy Directive 15
6 Shadowed by Race:
Latinos in New York City Politics, 2001 and Beyond
7 Dismantling the Race-Ethnicity Distinction:
Reconfiguring Race, Power, and Descent
Appendix A
Appendix B
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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