Beyond Chrismukkah

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samira K. Mehta
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Young Adult Fiction ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Mixed Marriages ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
Eye Opening ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
American Society

The rate of interfaith marriage in the United States has risen so radically since the sixties that it is difficult to recall how taboo the practice once was. How is this development understood and regarded by Americans generally, and what does it tell us about the nation’s religious life? Drawing on ethnographic and historical sources, Samira K. Mehta provides a fascinating analysis of wives, husbands, children, and their extended families in interfaith homes; religious leaders; and the social and cultural milieu surrounding mixed marriages among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. Mehta’s eye-opening look at the portrayal of interfaith families across American culture since the mid-twentieth century ranges from popular TV shows, holiday cards, and humorous guides to “Chrismukkah” to children’s books, young adult fiction, and religious and secular advice manuals. Mehta argues that the emergence of multiculturalism helped generate new terms by which interfaith families felt empowered to shape their lived religious practices in ways and degrees previously unknown. They began to intertwine their religious identities without compromising their social standing. This rich portrait of families living diverse religions together at home advances the understanding of how religion functions in American society today.

Western Religion in the Long 1960s

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 823-831
Author(s):  
HUGH MCLEOD
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
The Sixties ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

The Yale church historian, Sydney Ahlstrom, had just emerged somewhat dazed from the Sixties when he reviewed the religious trajectory of the United States during that decade. He wrote that by 1966 it was clear that ‘the post-war religious revival had completely frittered out, that the nation was moving towards a crise de la conscience of unprecedented depth’. As well as a ‘growing attachment to naturalism and “secularism”’ he mentioned ‘a creeping or galloping awareness of vast contradictions in American life between profession and performance, the ideal and the actual’ and ‘increasing doubt concerning the capacity of present-day ecclesiastical, political, social and educational institutions to rectify these contradictions’. As Ahlstrom made clear in a later essay, he saw the crisis faced both by the Roman Catholic Church and by the ‘mainline’ Protestant Churches as part of a wider loss of ‘confidence or hope’ in American society and a passing away of ‘the certitudes that had always shaped the nation's well-being and sense of destiny’.

scholarly journals The Color Line Reconsidered

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-313
Author(s):  
Michael C. Dawson
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Immigrant Incorporation ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Configuration ◽  
American Society ◽  
Rightward Movement ◽  
Moynihan Report ◽  
First Time

It is fitting that in the same issue that we present a previously unpublished article by W. E. B. Du Bois and host a symposium reviewing new major works on his political philosophy, we also present major essays debating the contours of the color line in the twenty-first century. Immigration and a strong rightward movement in American society are rapidly remaking the demographic and political configuration of the color line in the United States. Several essays in this issue debate critical aspects of this reconfiguration such as the relative importance of cultural versus structural causes of continued racial disparities; the role, if any, that racialization plays in shaping the modern immigrant incorporation into U.S. society; and, the legacy of the Moynihan report. Complementing these essays is a symposium on two major new books that provide fresh takes on the philosophical and theoretical relevance of Du Bois's thought for our times. We are also proud, for the first time anywhere, to publish Du Bois's essay, “The Social Significance of Booker T. Washington,” with an accompanying analytical introduction by Robert Brown.

Exploring the Implications of Culturally Relevant Teaching: Toward a Pedagogy of Liberation

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 371-389
Author(s):  
Dari Green
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Freedom Schools ◽  
Common Trend ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Us ◽  
Academic Enrichment ◽  
American Society

Schools in America may provide opportunities for upward mobility while also perpetuating social inequality. The inequities found in the US public school system probably result in such a highly stratified society. Conditions found in many schools and classrooms are often a microcosm of the same conditions and factors present in the broader American society. Scholars and education reform activists often use the term school-to-prison pipeline to describe what they view as a widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students, especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school, and into the criminal justice system. This research explored whether mentorship in the lives of these very students can affect the trajectory that these students take in life by moving toward a pedagogy of liberation that challenges the inequities and contradictions in the institution of education. Building from a model similar to CDF Freedom Schools, but targeting academic enrichment, Farrah and her colleague Hope developed the Sankofa Project at Yin Elementary School (YES). Embracing both the social-emotional and pedagogical aspects of CDF Freedom Schools, the Sankofa Project moved from a mission that sought to instill a love for reading to actually teaching children to read. This aspect was pivotally important to Farrah and Hope as they sought to dismantle the “cradle to prison pipeline,” the concept of funneling masses of people into marginalized lives, imprisonment, and often premature death. Farrah believed that all her predecessors had done “was spot on, but academic enrichment was a key to steering children away from the pipeline.” With the rebirth of a caste-like system in America, black and brown bodies are disproportionately locked behind bars, relegated permanent second-class status if declared a felon and an increasingly common trend toward annihilation at the hands of those of who are designated to serve and protect them.

scholarly journals The Politics Underlying the Provision of and Changes in Pathology and Laboratory Services in the United States During the Roaring Twenties

2016 ◽  
Vol 140 (9) ◽  
pp. 983-991 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Wright
Keyword(s):  
American Medical Association ◽  
Medical Association ◽  
American Medical ◽  
Clinical Pathology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Laboratory Medicine ◽  
Laboratory Model ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Commercial Laboratory ◽  
American Society

Context.—Prior to 1900, laboratory tests were simple enough to be performed by clinicians on the wards and most pathologists were academicians with little involvement in patient care issues. In the next 2 decades, laboratory test menus expanded rapidly and the increasing complexity of the tests created a potential niche for clinical pathologists (ie, pathologists providing patient-oriented anatomic and clinical pathology services). In the late 1910s and early 1920s, most of these services were provided by mail-order commercial laboratories or state public health laboratories rather than by hospital-based pathologists. Objective.—To describe the political events in the 1920s that would drastically alter the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine and that would have been important to the discipline at the time the Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine was being conceived and first published. Design.—Available primary and secondary historical sources were reviewed. Results.—In the 1920s, clinical pathologists organized, forming the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, and took on the powerful American Medical Association for permitting advertisements by private laboratories in the pages of the Journal of the American Medical Association that listed test prices as if these were commodities. They found a strong partner in the American College of Surgeons, which was attempting to elevate surgical practice by creating minimum standards for hospitals. Through this symbiotic relationship, hospital-based practice was firmly established and the commercial laboratory model faltered. Conclusions.—The Roaring Twenties was the time when the practice of pathology and laboratory medicine evolved into what we recognize today.

scholarly journals Race, Housing, and the Federal Government: Black Lives on the Margins of the American Dream

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Federal Government ◽  
American Dream ◽  
The United States ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Racial Injustice ◽  
Federal Housing ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
American Society

As historians have increasingly explored the complex historical relationship between race, class, and institutions such as the federal government in shaping contemporary American society, historical sources such as the Federal Housing Association’s Underwriting Manual (1938) provide provocative opportunities for teaching. Brief excerpts from the Manual are a small window through which to examine the underappreciated role of the U.S. federal government in creating and sustaining a racialized version of the American Dream. The result is an opportunity to equip students, as citizens, with the historical thinking skills and sources to examine the enduring historical arc of racial injustice and resistance in the United States that serves as the foundation for the Black Lives Matter movement.

scholarly journals In Pursuit of the American DREAM, or Mirage? Undocumented Youth in YA Fiction

Ad Americam ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 15-28
Author(s):  
Brygida Gasztold
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
Young Adult Fiction ◽  
Undocumented Youth ◽  
National Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ya Fiction ◽  
American Immigrant ◽  
American Law ◽  
American Society ◽  
The One

The problems of undocumented youth in contemporary American immigrant fiction have been given a major focus, as political shifts and competing agendas fuel an ongoing national debate. Especially for young people who are on the brink of adulthood, their status as documented or undocumented results in inclusion in or exclusion from social, economic and political spheres, which affect their daily experiences and influence their plans for the future. This paper will explore the ways in which illegal status informs, impacts, and shapes the protagonists’ identity. The concept of undocumented status is used in my paper as an analytical lens through which the novels are read. My choice of the comingof- age genre reflects the importance of adolescence as a crucial period in the formation of a person’s identity. I argue that young adult fiction with undocumented protagonists on the one hand gives voice to those who are silenced and forced to live on the margins of American society, and on the other hand familiarizes native-born Americans with the social struggles that might be distant from their own experiences but offer alternative ways of looking at the world. The narratives about “Dreamers” are part of a broader political discourse on the U.S. immigration. By exploring the relationship between fiction and the dominant legal system, they signal current social issues and offer a critique of exclusionary practices of American law and society.

scholarly journals The perception of “new” immigration in different strata of American society (late XIX – early XX centuries)

2020 ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kostyleva
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Negative Image ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
American Society

The subject of this research is the factors that led to formation of a negative image of “new” immigration and the occurrence of anti-immigrant moods in the United States in the last decades of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries. The author examines the social interaction processes between the local Anglo-Saxon population and the representatives of the so-called “new” immigration from Asia and South-Eastern Europe, which replaced the traditional labor immigration from Western and Northern Europe. Special attention is given to studying the origins of hostility and xenophobia towards migrants manifested in different strata of US society – the representatives of working and middle class, academic and cultural intelligentsia, and political elite. The author concludes that all social classes showed antagonism towards the “new” immigration. Although, the rhetoric on immigration varied depending on affiliation to one or another social segment. Working and middle class were concerned about competition on the job marker, social tension and nonconformity of immigrants to the image of the “ideal American”; while the ruling elites adhered to the ingrained in public discourse idea of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, which later on became the foundation for restrictionist policy towards migrants who were trying to get established in their land.

Back to the Woodshop: Black Education, Imperial Pedagogy, and Post-Racial Mythology under the Reign of Obama

2015 ◽  
Vol 117 (14) ◽  
pp. 27-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tommy J. Curry
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Moral Code ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Social Motives ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society

For centuries, European thinkers, and their contemporary white followers, have run rampant in the halls of academia prematurely championing the success of liberalism to speak to the experience of those historical groups of people excluded from modernity, while simultaneously celebrating the universal embrace by the supple bosom of whites’ anthropologically specific ideas of reason and humanity. This philosophical impetus has solidified the political regime of integration as not only the most desirable but also the most realizable condition of Black (co)existence in America. The education of Black Americans has been collapsed into a single ideological goal, namely, how to mold these Blacks into more functional and productive members of American society under the idea of equality established by Brown v. Board of Education. Unfortunately, however, such a commitment elevates the ethical appeals made by Brown, which focused on higher ideals of reason and humanity found in liberal political thought and the eventual transcendence of racial identity, to moral code. This ideology, instead of attending to what Blacks should learn or the knowledge Blacks need to have in order to thrive as Blacks in America, forces Blacks to abide by the social motives that aim to create good Negro citizens. When responding to the great debate over Negro education and Negro labor in the United States, Du Bois remarked: My thoughts, the thoughts of Washington, Trotter, Oswald Garrison Villard were the expression of social forces more than of our own minds. These forces or ideologies embraced more than reasoned acts. They included physical, biological and psychological habits, conventions and enactments. Opposed to these came natural reaction; the physical recoil of the victims, the unconscious and irrational urges, as well as reasoned complaints and acts. The total result was the history of our day. That history may be epitomize in one word—Empire; the domination of white Europe over [B]lack Africa and yellow Asia, through political power built on the economic control of labor, income and idea. The echo of this industrial imperialism in America was the expulsion of [B]lack men from American democracy, their subjection to caste control and wage slavery. (W. E. B. Du Bois— A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of its First Century: The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois—1968)

Wounded Warriors, Public Wards: The Consequences of Military Service

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan W. Keating
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Military Service ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social And Economic Development ◽  
Wounded Warriors ◽  
Post War ◽  
American Society

The men who marched to war in 1861 and 1862 returned home during and after the war and attempted to rejoin the communities they had left months and years before. Many veterans experienced trials and tribulations as they negotiated post-war America in search of stability and success. But their experiences were by no means unique, for many Americans, veterans and otherwise, immigrant and native born, struggled to secure their place in the bourgeoning cities and towns of late 19th century America. For the veterans of these Irish regiments from Connecticut, Illinois, and Wisconsin, their post-war lives were a mixture of success and failure, of hardship and triumph. Often proud of their service, these veterans were active participants in the social and economic development of the United States after mid-century and actively pursued opportunities that would better themselves and their place within American society.

Rerouting

2018 ◽  
pp. 206-233
Author(s):  
William Cloonan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
American Society

This chapter discusses a major shift in French novelists’ attitudes toward the United States. While the social critique remains very much in place, there is a new willingness to explore the American individual, famous, infamous, or ordinary, and to leave conclusions to the reader. The chapter offers a variety of changes in French and American society as explanations of this new phenomenon. The concluding portions of the chapter focus on one text, Ça n’existe pas l’Amérique, which illustrates many of these changes.

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