Ethnic Historians and the Mainstream
256 pages, 6 x 9
8 photographs
Paperback
Release Date:06 Nov 2013
ISBN:9780813562247
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Ethnic Historians and the Mainstream

Shaping America's Immigration Story

Rutgers University Press

Do historians “write their biographies” with the subjects they choose to address in their research? In this collection, editors Alan M. Kraut and David A. Gerber compiled eleven original essays by historians whose own ethnic backgrounds shaped the choices they have made about their own research and writing as scholars. These authors, historians of American immigration and ethnicity, revisited family and personal experiences and reflect on how their lives helped shape their later scholarly pursuits, at times inspiring specific questions they asked of the nation’s immigrant past. They address issues of diversity, multiculturalism, and assimilation in academia, in the discipline of history, and in society at large. Most have been pioneers not only in their respective fields, but also in representing their ethnic group within American academia. Some of the women in the group were in the vanguard of gender diversity in the discipline of history as well as on the faculties of the institutions where they have taught.

The authors in this collection represent a wide array of backgrounds, spanning Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. What they have in common is their passionate engagement with the making of social and personal identities and with finding a voice to explain their personal stories in public terms.

Contributors: Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, John Bodnar, María C. García, David A. Gerber, Violet M. Showers Johnson, Alan M. Kraut, Timothy J. Meagher, Deborah Dash Moore, Dominic A. Pacyga, Barbara M. Posadas, Eileen H. Tamura, Virginia Yans, Judy Yung

These historians whose books we have read, shaped the scholarship. With this insightful volume we can know where they came from and understand why they wrote as they did. Hasia Diner, New York University
Kraut and Gerber have assembled chapters by an impressive range of scholars, who reflect on how their own lives and experiences and those of their ancestors have informed their academic work. This collection presents compelling and revealing work from an outstanding group of scholars. Journal of Interdisciplinary History

ALAN M. KRAUT is University Professor of History at American University, a nonresident Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute, and president of the Organization of American Historians. He is the author of The Huddled Masses: The Immigrant in American Society, 1880–1921; Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace”; Goldberger’s War: The Life and Work of a Public Health Crusader; and coauthor of Covenant of Care: Newark Beth Israel and the Jewish Hospital in America (Rutgers University Press).

DAVID A. GERBER is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Buffalo where he continues to teach and assist in directing the Center for Disability Studies.  He is the author of American Immigration: A Very Short Introduction and Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century.

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
by David A. Gerber

2. Worlds Apart and Together: From Italian American Girlhood to Historian of Immigration
by Virginia Yans

3. Sidewalk Histories
by Deborah Dash Moore

4. Coal Town Chronicles and Scholarly Books
by John Bodnar

5. Ethnic and Racial Identities: A Polish Filipina's Progress
by Barbara M. Posadas

6. From Back of the Yards to the College Classroom
by Dominic A. Pacyga

7. Why Irish? Writing Irish American History
by Timothy J. Meagher

8. In Our Own Words: Reclaiming Chinese American Women's History
by Judy Yung

9. Ordinary People
by Eileen H. Tamura

10. Americana
by María Christina García

11. Meddling in the American Dilemma: Race, Migrations, and Identities from an Africana Transnational Perspective
by Violet M. Showers Johnson

12. From Uncle Mustafa to Auntie Rana: Journeys to Mexico, the United States, and Lebanon
by Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp

Coda
by Alan M. Kraut

Notes on Contributors
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