Browse

This book recounts a series of discussions between philosopher Jorge J. E. Gracia and fifteen prominent scholars on race, ethnicity, nationality, and Hispanic/Latino identity in the United States. These debates relate to two distinct traditions: the philosophy of race begun by African Americans in the nineteenth century, and the search for an understanding of identity initiated by Latin American philosophers in the sixteenth century. Participants include Linda M. Alcoff, K. Anthony Appiah, Richard J. Bernstein, Lawrence Blum, Robert Gooding-Williams, Eduardo Mendieta, and Lucius T. Outlaw Jr. The resulting dialogues reflect the analytic, Aristotelian, Continental, literary, Marxist, and pragmatic schools of thought. The debates cover the philosophy of Hispanics/Latinos in the United States and then move on to the philosophy of African Americans and Anglo Americans in the United States and the philosophy of Latin Americans in Latin America. Gracia and his interlocutors discuss the nature of race and ethnicity and their relation to nationality, linguistic rights, matters of identity, and affirmative action. They bind the concepts of race and ethnicity together in ways that open up new paths of inquiry. Gracia's familial-historical theory of ethnic and Hispanic/Latino identity operates at the center of each of these discussions, providing access to the philosopher's arguments while adding depth to issues that can be difficult to understand.

This book reveals the cultural and biological realities of race, gender, and sexual orientation from the perspective of the blind. Through ten case studies and dozens of interviews, the book taps directly into the phenomenology of race, gender, and sexual orientation among blind individuals, along with the everyday epistemology of vision. It reveals not only how the blind create systems of meaning out of cultural norms but also how cultural norms inform our conscious and unconscious interactions with others regardless of our physical ability to see.

This book offers an interpretation of the rise of Chinese food in the United States and reveals the forces that made this cuisine ubiquitous in the American gastronomic landscape. It describes how American diners began to flock to Chinese restaurants more than a century ago, making Chinese food the first mass-consumed cuisine in the United States. By 1980, this food had become the country's most popular ethnic cuisine. Epitomized by chop suey, American Chinese food was a forerunner of McDonald's, democratizing the once-exclusive dining-out experience for such groups as marginalized Anglos, African Americans, and Jews. The book describes the emergence of Chinese food in America as an epic story of global cultural encounter. It explains that its development was engineered by a politically disenfranchised, numerically small and economically exploited group of people and that it reflected not only changes in taste but also a growing appetite for a more leisurely lifestyle. It argues that Americans fell in love with Chinese food not because of its gastronomic excellence but because of its affordability and convenience, which is why they preferred the quick and simple dishes of China while shunning its haute cuisine. The book also characterizes the rise of Chinese food as a classic American story of immigrant entrepreneurship and perseverance: Barred from many occupations, Chinese Americans successfully turned Chinese food from a despised cuisine into a dominant force in the restaurant market, creating a critical lifeline for their community.

Race, while drawn from the visual cues of human diversity, is an idea with a measurable past, an identifiable present, and an uncertain future. The concept of race has been at the center of both triumphs and tragedies in American history and has had a profound effect on the human experience. This book revisits the origins of commonly held beliefs about the scientific nature of racial differences, examines the roots of the modern idea of race, and explains why race continues to generate controversy as a tool of classification even in our genomic age. Surveying the work of some of the twentieth century's most notable scientists, the book reveals how genetics and related biological disciplines formed and preserved ideas of race and, at times, racism. It elucidates the limitations of a racial worldview and throws the contours of our current and evolving understanding of human diversity into sharp relief.

Do advances in genomic biology create a scientific rationale for long-discredited racial categories? Chapters based in the fields of law, medicine, biology, sociology, history, anthropology, and psychology examine the impact of modern genetics on the concept of race. Chapters trace the interplay between genetics and race in forensic DNA databanks, the biology of intelligence, DNA ancestry markers, and racialized medicine. Each chapter explores commonly held and unexamined assumptions and misperceptions about race in science and popular culture. The book begins with the historical origins and current uses of the concept of “race” in science. It follows with an analysis of the role of race in DNA databanks and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Chapters then consider the rise of recreational genetics in the form of for-profit testing of genetic ancestry and the introduction of racialized medicine, specifically through an FDA-approved heart drug called BiDil, marketed to African American men. Concluding chapters discuss the contradictions between our scientific and cultural understandings of race and the continuing significance of race in educational and criminal justice policy.