Synopses & Reviews
The divide over race is usually framed as one over Black and White. Sociologist Eileen OBrien is interested in that middle terrain, what sits in the ever-increasing gray area she dubbed the racial middle.
The Racial Middle, tells the story of the other racial and ethnic groups in America, mainly Latinos and Asian Americans, two of the largest and fastest-growing minorities in the United States. Using dozens of in-depth interviews with people of various ethnic and generational backgrounds, Eileen O’Brien challenges the notion that, to fit into American culture, the only options available to Latinos and Asian Americans are either to become white or to become brown.
Instead, she offers a wholly unique analysis of Latinos and Asian Americans own distinctive experiences—those that arent typically White nor Black. Though living alongside Whites and Blacks certainly frames some of their own identities and interpretations of race, OBrien keenly observes that these groups struggles with discrimination, their perceived isolation from members of other races, and even how they define racial justice, are all significant realities that inform their daily lives and, importantly, influence their opportunities for advancement in society.
A refreshing and lively approach to understanding race and ethnicity in the twenty-first century, The Racial Middle gives voice to Latinos and Asian-Americans place in this countrys increasingly complex racial mosaic.
Review
“Well-organized, well-written, and engaging. I know of no other work that provides such an in-depth analysis of how Latinos and Asian-Americans define racial issues.”
-Woody Doane,co-editor of White Out: the Continuing Significance of Race
Review
“. . . she applies a sharp analysis to the informants racial views and experiences, producing some fascinating insights, e.g., the ‘pervasive impact of the USs currently dominant color-blind racial ideology on those in the middle.”
-Choice,
Review
“Tells the story of the “in-between” racial and ethnic groups in America through in-depth interviews and analyses, explaining the recent phenomenon developing around discriminated and isolated Latino and Asian American groups.”
-Nichi Bei Times,
Review
"[T]his well-written book gives ample voice to the interviewees and would fit well into introductory classes on race/ethnicity. It offers useful insights in the process of making its argument."
“Well-organized, well-written, and engaging. I know of no other work that provides such an in-depth analysis of how Latinos and Asian-Americans define racial issues.”
“. . . she applies a sharp analysis to the informants’ racial views and experiences, producing some fascinating insights, e.g., the ‘pervasive impact’ of the US’s currently dominant color-blind racial ideology on those in the middle.”
“Tells the story of the “in-between” racial and ethnic groups in America through in-depth interviews and analyses, explaining the recent phenomenon developing around discriminated and isolated Latino and Asian American groups.”
Review
“Offers an eloquent and compelling account of nineteenth and twentieth century cultural production—one that resituates Mexicanos at the center of thinking about U.S. nation-making during the nineteenth century and beyond. . . . This stunning new text promises to reshape literary and theoretical work in American Studies.”
-Mary Pat Brady,author of Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographics: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space
Review
“Discussions of Latino cultural citizenship and public culture have a distinguished and stimulating lineage in the work of major figures such as Renato Rosaldo, Rina Benmayour, and William Flores. With his new book that introduces literary history into the discussion, we must now add the name of John-Michael Rivera.”
-José E. Limón,author of American Encounters: Greater Mexico, the United States, and the Erotics of Culture
Review
“The books research base is impressive, and Riveras reading of his sources is sophisticated, nuanced, and informed by the latest scholarship in ethnic, literary, sociological, and historical studies.”
-Ernesto Chavez,University of Texas at El Paso
Review
“In elegant (and enviable) prose, Riveras work calls for continued inquest into the role of stories, land, and memory in the formation of current Mexican political collectivities.”
-Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies,
Review
"The Racial Middle allows us to hear the voices of Latinos and Asian Americans reflecting on their everyday experiences of racialization and how they navigate U.S. racial politics in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. The book provides a worthy point of departure from which future research can further analyze Latino and Asian American interactions with and attitudes toward whites and blacks."-Jane Hseu,Amerasia Journal
Review
“Well-organized, well-written, and engaging. I know of no other work that provides such an in-depth analysis of how Latinos and Asian-Americans define racial issues.”
-Woody Doane,co-editor of White Out: the Continuing Significance of Race
Review
“. . . she applies a sharp analysis to the informants racial views and experiences, producing some fascinating insights, e.g., the ‘pervasive impact of the USs currently dominant color-blind racial ideology on those in the middle.”
-Choice,
Review
“Tells the story of the “in-between” racial and ethnic groups in America through in-depth interviews and analyses, explaining the recent phenomenon developing around discriminated and isolated Latino and Asian American groups.”
-Nichi Bei Times,
Synopsis
Winner of the 2006 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award in Western American Literary Studies, presented by the Western Literature Association
In The Emergence of Mexican America, John-Michael Rivera examines the cultural, political, and legal representations of Mexican Americans and the development of US capitalism and nationhood. Beginning with the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 and continuing through the period of mass repatriation of US Mexican laborers in 1939, Rivera examines both Mexican-American and Anglo-American cultural production in order to tease out the complexities of the so-called “Mexican question.” Using historical and archival materials, Rivera's wide-ranging objects of inquiry include fiction, non-fiction, essays, treaties, legal materials, political speeches, magazines, articles, cartoons, and advertisements created by both Mexicans and Anglo Americans. Engaging and methodologically venturesome, Rivera's study is a crucial contribution to Chicano/Latino Studies and fields of cultural studies, history, government, anthropology, and literary studies.
About the Author
Eileen OBrien is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Christopher Newport University, Virginia. She is the author of Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and Their Paths to Action and, with Joe Feagin, White Men on Race. She is the co-editor, with Joseph Healey, of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender: Selected Readings.