Masih put out a call for Intercultural Essays dealing with the subjects of "culture, race, and a sense of place." The prizewinners are gathered for the first time in a ground-breaking anthology that explores many facets of culture not previously found under one cover. The powerful, honest, thoughtful voices-Native American, African American, Asian, European, Jewish, White-speak daringly on topics not often discussed in the open, on subjects such as racism, war, self-identity, gender, societal expectations. Their words will entertain, illuminate, take you to distant lands, and spark important discussions about our humanity, our culture, and our place within society and the natural world. A TEACHING TOLERANCE Staff Pick Fall 2013"This collection of essays provides a lens into intercultural experiences that will offer important insights for teachers as well as students...and can lead to a greater understanding of and appreciation for our global community." - Dr. Zaline M. Roy-Campbell, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Program in Teaching English Language Learners, Syracuse University "This contemporary collection of essays will be an invaluable resource. I'm especially impressed by the range of themes..." - Mary McLaughlin Slechta, ESL instructor, Nottingham High School

    population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab movement.Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought, producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war.For more, check out the author-run Facebook page for Arab America.

    From the films Precious and Crash to recent biographies of Malcolm X and Henrietta Lacks, hooks offers provocative insights into the way race is being talked about in this "post-racial" era.

    If we understand this, Erica R. Edwards tells us, we will better appreciate the dramatic variations within both the modern black freedom struggle and the black literary tradition.By considering leaders such as Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Barack Obama as both historical personages and narrative inventions of contemporary American culture, Edwards brings to the study of black politics the tools of intertextual narrative analysis as well as deconstruction and close reading. Examining a number of literary restagings of black leadership in African American fiction by W. E. B. Du Bois, George Schuyler, Zora Neale Hurston, William Melvin Kelley, Paul Beatty, and Toni Morrison, Edwards demonstrates how African American literature has contested charisma as a structuring fiction of modern black politics.Though recent scholarship has challenged top-down accounts of historical change, the presumption that history is made by gifted men continues to hold sway in American letters and life. This may be, Edwards shows us, because while charisma is a transformative historical phenomenon, it carries an even stronger seductive narrative power that obscures the people and methods that have created social and political shifts.

    Written in an authentic and unique voice, this book describes how the author’s Mexican parents instilled a love of learning, a desire to excel, and a commitment to community in their children. Relating how her heritage and upbringing allowed her to lead her community and promote social justice, the author conveys a courageous story of hope, love, faith, and a fighting spirit long committed to social and environmental justice, regardless of the personal cost.

    Racial Formation in the 21st Century, arriving twenty-five years after the publication of Omi and Winant’s influential work, brings together fourteen essays by leading scholars in law, history, sociology, ethnic studies, literature, anthropology and gender studies to consider the past, present and future of racial formation. The contributors explore far-reaching concerns: slavery and land ownership; labor and social movements; torture and war; sexuality and gender formation; indigineity and colonialism; genetics and the body. From the ecclesiastical courts of seventeenth century Lima to the cell blocks of Abu Grahib, the essays draw from Omi and Winant’s influential theory of racial formation and adapt it to the various criticisms, challenges, and changes of life in the twenty-first century.

    This book is part of an effort to include Puerto Ricans in Chicago's history. R�a traces Puerto Ricans' construction of identity in anarrative that begins in 1945, when a small group of University of Puerto Rico graduates earned scholarships to attend the University of Chicago and a private employment agency recruited Puerto Rican domestics and foundry workers. They arrived from an island colony where they had held U.S.citizenship and where most thought of themselves as white. But in Chicago, Puerto Ricans were considered colored and their citizenship was second class. They seemed to share few of the rights other Chicagoans took for granted. In her analysis of the following six decades--during which Chicagowitnessed urban renewal, loss of neighborhoods, emergence of multiracial coalitions, waves of protest movements, and everyday commemorations of death and life--R�a explores the ways in which Puerto Ricans have negotiated their identity as Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and U.S. citizens.Through a variety of sources, including oral history interviews, ethnographic observation, archival research, and textual criticism, A Grounded Identidad attempts to redress this oversight of traditional scholarship on Chicago by presenting not only Puerto Ricans' reconstitution from colonialsubjects to second-class citizens, but also by examining the implications of this political reality on the ways in which Puerto Ricans have been racially imagined and positioned in comparison to blacks, whites, and Mexicans over time.

    In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Black students organized hundreds of protests that sparked a period of crackdown, negotiation, and reform that profoundly transformed college life. At stake was the very mission of higher education. Black students demanded that public universities serve their communities; that private universities rethink the mission of elite education; and that black colleges embrace self-determination and resist the threat of integration. Most crucially, black students demanded a role in the definition of scholarly knowledge.Martha Biondi masterfully combines impressive research with a wealth of interviews from participants to tell the story of how students turned the slogan “black power” into a social movement. Vividly demonstrating the critical linkage between the student movement and changes in university culture, Biondi illustrates how victories in establishing Black Studies ultimately produced important intellectual innovations that have had a lasting impact on academic research and university curricula over the past 40 years. This book makes a major contribution to the current debate on Ethnic Studies, access to higher education, and opportunity for all.

    His book, deeply moving and tenderly written, shares the discoveries he’s made and his insights on how we can build a more inclusive, equitable, and harmonious society.

    Obama’s conception of America emphasizes two principles of national unity: First, all Americans, regardless of their heritage and cultural traditions, should identify with America as their country, based upon shared democratic values, a shared history, and a shared fate. Second, America should embrace all its citizens as active participants in one “family.” Reifowitz explores Obama’s belief that strengthening our common bonds will encourage Americans to rectify the injustices and heal the racial divisions that still plague our country.We have the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that a society of many races and cultures can truly become one people. In facing terrorism, violent fundamentalism, and other security issues, Obama’s response centers on a powerful, inspiring, and truly inclusive American narrative. By bolstering America’s identity as diverse yet unified, he aims both to counter the anxieties and fears that radicalism stokes and give proponents of religious and political freedom a model they can defend. The stakes couldn’t be any higher in determining America’s future.

    You'll get on fine, right? After all, they speak English there too, and you've seen a lot of American movies. You'll be prepared! Unfortunately, it doesn't turn out to be quite that easy. Americans look at you in shock when you ask polite questions. Waiters bring you the wrong drink, and then don't understand your protests. Drivers honk at your car when you're doing nothing more than staying stopped at a red light. What's going on? This book will help travelers with just these kinds of America-related puzzles. The 23 sections cover everything from tipping to addressing mail to the one word that visitors to America should always avoid. Whether you’re in America for a week or a marriage, you can enjoy a less confusing USA with the information I wish I'd known.

    Part ll of the book consists of a compilation of short biographies of noble black and North African Muslim men and women in Islamic history including Prophets, Companions of he Prophet (SAAS) and more recent historical figures.