Creating a New Racial Order: How Immigration, Multiracialism, Genomics, and the Young Can Remake Race in America - Softcover

Hochschild, Jennifer L.; Weaver, Vesla M.; Burch, Traci R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691160937 ISBN 13: 9780691160931

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2014

Synopsis

The American racial order--the beliefs, institutions, and practices that organize relationships among the nation's races and ethnicities--is undergoing its greatest transformation since the 1960s. Creating a New Racial Order takes a groundbreaking look at the reasons behind this dramatic change, and considers how different groups of Americans are being affected. Through revealing narrative and striking research, the authors show that the personal and political choices of Americans will be critical to how, and how much, racial hierarchy is redefined in decades to come.

The authors outline the components that make up a racial order and examine the specific mechanisms influencing group dynamics in the United States: immigration, multiracialism, genomic science, and generational change. Cumulatively, these mechanisms increase heterogeneity within each racial or ethnic group, and decrease the distance separating groups from each other. The authors show that individuals are moving across group boundaries, that genomic science is challenging the whole concept of race, and that economic variation within groups is increasing. Above all, young adults understand and practice race differently from their elders: their formative memories are 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and Obama's election--not civil rights marches, riots, or the early stages of immigration. Blockages could stymie or distort these changes, however, so the authors point to essential policy and political choices.

Portraying a vision, not of a postracial America, but of a different racial America, Creating a New Racial Order examines how the structures of race and ethnicity are altering a nation.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"This is a wide-ranging exploration of how America looks, thinks, and lives in terms of race as we go into this new millennium. Bridging political science, sociology, and the burgeoning study of DNA, the authors show us that racial order remains one of the most reliable ways of organizing our past and present as Americans, even as that order is dynamic and indeed transformed over time."--Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University

"It is not often that one reads a book that changes how we think the world works. Creating a New Racial Order is replete with original, and sometimes surprising, insights and evidence on the forces that are generating rising racial heterogeneity in the United States. The authors' compelling analysis of the ongoing transformation of America's racial order is a must-read."--William Julius Wilson, Harvard University

"Showing how historical trends have produced an unprecedented complexity and fluidity in racial meanings, classifications, and identities in the United States, this book argues that the American racial order is changing for the better and explains why this is happening. Bold and provocative, this book is a game changer."--Claire Jean Kim, University of California, Irvine

"With an in-depth analysis of changing definitions of race, this compelling and absorbing book presents evidence that the American racial order is in the middle of a historic transformation. It marshals a spectacular amount of research and sophisticated detail, and will stir considerable debate and discussion. In my reading in this subject area, I haven't encountered a book equal to this one."--Raphael J. Sonenshein, California State University, Fullerton

About the Author

Jennifer L. Hochschild is the Henry LaBarre Jayne Professor of Government, professor of African and African American studies, and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University. Vesla M. Weaver is an assistant professor in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. Traci R. Burch is assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University and research professor at the American Bar Foundation.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0691160937
• ISBN 13: 9780691160931
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 280