Barriers to Ambition across Class, Race, Ethnicity, and National Origin

This chapter examines barriers to ambition based on class, race, ethnicity, and national origin. It notes that many nations do a better job in delivering on the American Dream than America does. The United States has lower rates of intergenerational mobility than other comparable countries. The public radically underestimates barriers to ambition based on race, class, and ethnicity and the resource disparities in families, schools, and support structures that hobble disadvantaged youth. Americans also fail to address the racial barriers and biases that persist across class. Children of some recent immigrant groups are an exception to these patterns and have higher ambitions and achievements than children of similar backgrounds with American-born parents. But those advantages fade with each generation, and even members of “model minorities” confront disabling stereotypes and marginalization. Society pays a substantial price for the failure to address these inequalities, and the chapter closes with key reform priorities.

Introduction

The OSS did not use race in their recruitment of Asian Americans. Instead, they used loyalty to determine which Asian American with the necessary linguistic and cultural skills could join the agency. But to understand why the OSS leaders took the risk in bringing in a potential Asian American Trojan Horse one must see race and loyalty as not fixed but fluid social constructions. Using a wide variety of sources scattered across the globe, this chapter shows that Asian Americans had broken through racial barriers as they were tasked with gathering, translating, and analyzing intelligence data, creating propaganda pamphlets and radio programs, conducting hit-and-run operations miles behind enemy lines, and hunting for enemy spies behind Allied lines. Their roles, salaries, and military rank all point to how rapidly loyalty and not race became the primary determinant of employment with and treatment in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

“If Only We Are Brave Enough to Be It”: Demanding More from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts to Support Women Faculty of Color”

The Black Lives Matter protests, the racial inequality laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol prompted several organizations and academic institutions to write statements in support of the Movement for Black Lives and to re-evaluate their dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Using auto-ethnographical analysis, I address the inadequacy of such liberal initiatives to effectively challenge racial barriers to the promotion and retention of faculty of color, especially women of color. In fact, I argue that such initiatives could present further challenges for women of color, who are only included superficially and in ways that create more invisible, unrecognized labor. I propose that the language of DEI efforts must more centrally name racism at the same time that they address intersectionality through what I call racism-centered intersectional approaches. These approaches are particularly needed given the history of attacks on ethnic studies and critical race theory.

Letter to the Editor: COVID-19 and Its Impact on the Sports Industry

One of the most quoted statements in sports literature was uttered during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg in which Nelson Mandela said, and I quote “Sport has the power to change the world, “It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers”. Every athlete wants to make a contribution to this and they have to put their lives on hold just for the nation. They sacrifice their relationships, friendships, and life in general just so other people can smile. Now there is COVID and athletes have been home. The emotional rollercoaster is real. The constant influx of information, changes to daily routines, uncertainty with personal health and the health of others coupled with rapidly changing reports, ischaracteristic of the ups and downs of a rollercoaster. All of which is physically and emotionally draining. Some studies have reported certain common feelings among athletes as follows: fear, anxiety, loss, relief, confusion, disappointment, exhaustion,frustration, and anger. Mandates to stay home and socially distance may cause you to feel physically alone. However, this has made several athletes feel like they are on an emotionalisland. There are understandable uncertainties and anxieties about when qualifiers will be held, how to maintain fitness and training, and whether the Olympic/Paralympic Games will occur or not. For some, this comes with permanent changes such as unwanted and unplanned pregnancies among female athletes, substance abuse, and overweight. This can never be clearly explained unless you are experiencing it.In Zambia, the year 2020 was as tormenting as it can get, from experiencing the hitherto unexplained gassing of citizens incidences with some dangerous chemicals to the realization of a COVID-19 outbreak and report of first case in March of 2020. Now every journal, media house and story teller has reported how it is no longer a hyperbole to claim that this new virus has left no life, sector or industry unaffected. In the first few months of the pandemic, the world had focused mainly on the effects of COVID-19 on the larger public and businesses, with concerns for athletes’ wellbeing hardly hitting the limelight.

Booming Then, Sputtering Now

This article reviews the post-World War II mass production of houses in Los Angeles and the roots of today’s housing shortage. Even with a high production rate, minorities and low-income Angelenos have experienced racial barriers and displacement. Today, L.A.’s homeless population is disproportionally Black, while home ownership is disproportionally white. The article concludes with four proposals for responding to today’s shortage of affordable and racially equitable housing.

A History of Systemic Racism at the University of Minnesota School of Nursing

A history of discrimination against racial and religious minorities at the University of Minnesota, maintained by powerful administrators who were subsequently honored with named buildings, was reflected in acts and patterns of racism in admissions and housing, within the School of Nursing. This article recounts well-documented examples of racial bias, particularly the story of Frances Mchie Rains, the first nurse of color to graduate from the University of Minnesota School of Nursing and a pioneer in overcoming racial barriers.

Multiplying Buddhist Missions—Singapore, Bangkok, Penang

This chapter discusses the activities of the Irish Buddhist monk and anti-colonial activist U Dhammaloka in Siam (today’s Thailand), the Straits Settlements, and Federated Malay States (today’s Singapore and Malaysia) in 1903–5. It discusses his alliance with the saopha (ruler) of the Shan state of Kentung on the Burmese borders, his foundation of a bilingual school at Wat Ban Thawai in Bangkok, his finding a Chinese patron in Singapore, founding of a Buddhist school and mission there and involvement with multiethnic networks, his work in Penang, and his time in India. The chapter also discusses the plebeian cosmopolitanism which he both embodied and drew on: an everyday cooperation across supposedly fixed ethnic and racial barriers that characterized both mundane labour and Buddhist revival movements in this period.