scholarly journals Editor’s Corner

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 2
Author(s):  
Laura Sare

Last year I published an editorial about voting during the pandemic, contrasting states trying to make voting more accessible, with states that were fighting efforts to enable ways citizens could vote safely. Unfortunately greater voting access is under more attack now. The Brennan Center for Justice noted as of March 24th, “361 bills with restrictive provisions in 47 states. That’s 108 more than the 253 restrictive bills tallied as of February 19, 2021—a 43 percent increase in little more than a month.” This is very disappointing, and once again my home state of Texas is restricting access, trying to ban methods of voting that local officials allowed during the pandemic in last year’s general election. The Texas Senate recently passed Senate Bill 7, which would limit extended early voting hours, prohibit drive-thru voting, and make it illegal for local election officials to proactively send applications to vote by mail. Here’s hoping the Texas House will stand up to the Texas Senate and not restrict the ways citizens of Texas can vote. I think it also demonstrates that the U.S. Supreme Court was premature in its 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling removing the requirement that states with a history of racial discrimination in voting get pre-clearance from the Justice Department before making changes in voting procedures. With so many states trying to restrict voting, and limit the powers of election officials, the U.S House has passed H.R. 1, For the People Act of 2021, in early March. This bill addresses voter access, election integrity and security, and more. Hopefully this will pass the U.S. Senate and allow the citizens of the United States the right to vote without undue burdens.

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Helms Tippen ◽  
Heidi S. Hakimi-Hood ◽  
Amanda Milian

This article examines the history and movements of one collection of recipes in three “acts” or iterations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Maria Eliza Ketelby Rundell's A New System of Domestic Cookery is published in London in 1806, and almost immediately, the book is pirated and printed in the United States. More than 100 years later, the same collection of recipes is reprinted by S. Thomas Bivins under the title The Southern Cookbook. The authors discuss the implications of the text's movements through the lens of book history and copyright law. Rundell sues her publisher, John Murray, for the right to control the publication of her recipes. Meanwhile, in the U.S., her book is continuously in print for decades, but Rundell receives no remuneration for it. Bivins, an African American merchant and principal of a training institute for black domestic workers, takes the recipes attributed to Rundell from the public domain for The Southern Cookbook. The authors conclude that this cookbook in three acts demonstrates how a history of the cookbook in general can challenge received understandings of authorship and textual ownership.


2015 ◽  
Vol 67 (5) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
David L. Wilson

Anyone who really wants to understand U.S. immigration policy needs to read the brief history of the U.S.-Mexico border in Aviva Chomsky's often-brilliant new book on immigration.&hellip; Politicians constantly tell us we have lost control of the border. In fact, as <em>Undocumented</em> demonstrates, never in the 166 years since the border was established by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has it been so tightly controlled as it is now. For nearly half its history it was exactly the thing immigration opponents say they fear most&mdash;an open border. The first serious restrictions did not come until a head tax and a literacy requirement were imposed in 1917, and even then there was an exemption for Mexican workers, the people most likely to enter the country from the south.&hellip; The United States wanted this labor for a reason: it was cheap and disposable.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-67-number-5" title="Vol. 67, No. 5: October 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>


Worldview ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 13-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yahya Armajani

The recent uprisings in Iran took the world in general and the United States in particular completely by surprise. Indeed, the shah himself and his government were caught off guard. He had stated repeatedly in his frequent interviews with foreign reporters that there was a close bond between him and the people of Iran, that he was like a father to them, and that he loved them and they loved him.If he actually believed this, then he must have been shocked to witness a grass roots revolt, the like of which had not been seen in the history of Iran.


Author(s):  
Rosina Lozano

An American Language is a political history of the Spanish language in the United States. The nation has always been multilingual and the Spanish language in particular has remained as an important political issue into the present. After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what Spanish's presence in the United States meant. This book recovers this story by using evidence that includes Spanish language newspapers, letters, state and territorial session laws, and federal archives to profile the struggle and resilience of Spanish speakers who advocated for their language rights as U.S. citizens. Comparing Spanish as a language of politics and as a political language across the Southwest and noncontiguous territories provides an opportunity to measure shifts in allegiance to the nation and exposes differing forms of nationalism. Language concessions and continued use of Spanish is a measure of power. Official language recognition by federal or state officials validates Spanish speakers' claims to US citizenship. The long history of policies relating to language in the United States provides a way to measure how U.S. visions of itself have shifted due to continuous migration from Latin America. Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens are crucial arbiters of Spanish language politics and their successes have broader implications on national policy and our understanding of Americans.


Genealogy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
Samuel M. Otterstrom ◽  
Brian E. Bunker ◽  
Michael A. Farnsworth

Genealogical research is full of opportunities for connecting generations. Millions of people pursue that purpose as they put together family trees that span hundreds of years. These data are valuable in linking people to the people of their past and in developing personal identities, and they can also be used in other ways. The purposes of this paper are to first give a short history of the development and practice of family history and genealogical research in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has developed the FamilySearch website, and second, to show how genealogical data can illustrate forward generation migration flows across the United States by analyzing resulting patterns and statistics. For example, descendants of people born in several large cities exhibited distinct geographies of migration away from the cities of their forebears.


2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 36-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Stocker

Nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZs) were an important development in the history of nuclear nonproliferation efforts. From 1957 through 1968, when the Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed, the United States struggled to develop a policy toward NWFZs in response to efforts around the world to create these zones, including in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. Many within the U.S. government initially rejected the idea of NWFZs, viewing them as a threat to U.S. nuclear strategy. However, over time, a preponderance of officials came to see the zones as advantageous, at least in certain areas of the world, particularly Latin America. Still, U.S. policy pertaining to this issue remained conservative and reactive, reflecting the generally higher priority given to security policy than to nuclear nonproliferation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 197-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
David N. Bengston ◽  
Jim Dator ◽  
Michael J. Dockry ◽  
Aubrey Yee

Forestry and forest products research has entered into a robust research agenda focused on creating nano-sized particles and nanoproducts from wood. As wood-based materials can be sustainably produced, the potential of these renewable products could be limitless and include high-end compostable electronics, paint-on solar panels, and lightweight materials for airplanes and cars. Others warn about potential serious negative health and environmental consequences. Either way, wood-based nanomaterials could disrupt forestry as we know it. This article is a summary and analysis of a collaborative research project exploring the futures of wood-based nanomaterials within the context of the futures of forests and forest management within the United States. We start by describing the history of forestry through the lens of the U.S. Forest Service, then describe nanotechnology in general and wood-based nanocellulose specifically. Next, we outline the Manoa School alternative futures method, and how we used it to design and carry out a “complete futures of x” project. Following the Manoa School approach, we describe four alternative futures for forestry and forest management. We conclude with implications for the future of forestry, forests, and forest-based nanomaterials, as well as a discussion on the implementation of a complete “futures of x” project.


1988 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-124
Author(s):  
Marian McDonald

November 1988 marks the tenth anniversary of the U.S. Government's adoption of guidelines for federally-funded sterilizations. This action was the result of years of organizing by the anti-sterilization abuse movement which grew in the early 1970s in response to the alarming increase in numbers of coercive sterilizations, particularly among poor and minority women. This retrospective examination looks at the strengths and weaknesses of anti-sterilization abuse organizing in the United States, and draws out lessons for other areas of work. It begins by exploring the problem of sterilization abuse and the history of the movement against it. The movement is analyzed using key theoretical concepts of community organizing. An evaluation indicates that the anti-abuse efforts were successful and rich with lessons for reproductive rights and other popular health struggles today.


2021 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-376
Author(s):  
Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson

In December 1977, a tiny group of U.S. glove makers—most of whom were African American and Latina women—launched a petition before the U.S. International Trade Commission calling for protection from rising imports. Their target was China. Represented by the Work Glove Manufacturers Association, their petition called for quotas on a particular kind of glove entering the United States from China: cotton work gloves. This was a watershed moment. For the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949, U.S. workers singled out Chinese goods in pursuit of import relief. Because they were such a small group taking on a country as large as China, their supporters championed the cause as one of David versus Goliath. Yet the case has been forgotten, partly because the glove workers lost. Here I uncover their story, bringing the history of 1970s deindustrialization in the United States into conversation with U.S.-China rapprochement, one of the most significant political transformations of the Cold War. The case, and indeed the loss itself, reveals the tensions between the interests of U.S. workers, corporations, and diplomats. Yet the case does not provide a simple narrative of U.S. workers’ interests being suppressed by diplomats and policymakers nurturing globalized trade ties. Instead, it also underscored the conflicting interests within the U.S. labor movement at a time when manufacturing companies were moving their production jobs to East Asia.


Author(s):  
Craig Allen

The first completely researched history of U.S. Spanish-language television traces the rise of two foremost, if widely unrecognized, modern American enterprises—the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo. It is a standard scholarly history constructed from archives, original interviews, reportage, and other public materials. Occasioned by the public’s wakening to a “Latinization” of the U.S., the book demonstrates that the emergence of Spanish-language television as a force in mass communication is essential to understanding the increasing role of Latinos and Latino affairs in modern American society. It argues that a combination of foreign and domestic entrepreneurs and innovators who overcame large odds resolves a significant and timely question: In an English-speaking country, how could a Spanish-speaking institution have emerged? Through exploration of significant and colorful pioneers, continuing conflicts and setbacks, landmark strides, and ongoing controversies—and with revelations that include regulatory indecision, behind-the-scenes tug-of-war, and the internationalization of U.S. mass media—the rise of a Spanish-language institution in the English-speaking U.S. is explained. Nine chapters that begin with Spanish-language television’s inception in 1961 and end 2012 chronologically narrate the endeavor’s first 50 years. Events, passages, and themes are thoroughly referenced.


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