Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division Summer 2011 Newsletter Message From Our Chair Dear Subscribers, Summer is here! I hope either your quarter or semester was rewarding and that you are preparing for our meeting in Las Vegas. Our Meeting will be held August 19-21, 2011 at the Harrah‘s Las Vegas Hotel, 3475 Las Vegas Blvd, South, Las Vegas, Nevada. Unfortunately, our “Tables in the Round” and the session on “Tourism and Global Cities” were cancelled, but we have added a session entitled Racial Discourse and Diversity Rhetoric in Post-Civil Rights America to replace Tourism and Global Cities.  I thank Ashley Rondini and Jessie Daniels for their willingness to serve as co-organizers for the roundtables and David Embrick for his willingness to chair the Tourism and Global Cities session. But still, I am sure that we will have a GREAT meeting in Vegas. We are preparing our Fall Newsletter and continue to encourage you to submit information for this edition.  Please let us know of recent publications (e.g., articles, books, monographs, etc.), awards, honors and notices for the meetings you would like us to include in the newsletter. As always, we are also interested in including short articles about current events or research.  Please submit any materials for the newsletter to caoimhinom@gmail.com Looking forward to seeing you in Vegas! Best, Marlese Page 1 61st Annual Meeting Preliminary Program Service Sociology The Society for the Study of Social Problems 61st Annual Meeting,  August 19-21, 2011 Harrah's Las Vegas Hotel Download the current preliminary program at http://www.sssp1.org, and find detailed information and the program schedule, including a rich assortment of sessions, meetings, special events, and receptions.   Memorandum for your calendars The Racial and Ethnic Minorities Division graduate student paper award will be announced on June 30, 2011. The student winner will receive $100 stipend and a ticket to the SSSP awards banquet. The Racial and Ethnic Minorities Divisional Meeting is scheduled for Friday at 12:30 PM in the Lake Tahoe Room at the Harrah. The meeting will run until 2:10PM. 2011 Annual Meeting Guidelines for Program Participants is posted on the website, please review it as you prepare for our meeting in Las Vegas. Page 2 The Social Justice Sexuality Project  recently completed its field period. It is one of the largest ever national surveys of Black, Latina/o, and Asian and Pacific Islander, and multiracial lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.  With over 5,000 respondents, the final sample includes respondents from all 50 states; Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico; in rural and suburban areas, in addition to large urban areas; and from a variety of ages, racial/ethnic identities, sexual orientations, and gender identities.   The purpose of the SJS Project is to document and celebrate the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people of color.  All too often, when we think about LGBT people of color, it’s from a perspective of pathology.   In contrast, the SJS Project is designed and dedicated to describing a more dynamic experience. It's a knowledge-based study that investigates the sociopolitical experiences of this population around four themes: family formations and dynamics; civic engagement; racial and sexual identity; spirituality and religion; mental and physical health. The SJS Project is intended to expand our understanding of the intersectionality of race, sexuality, and social justice for LGBT people of color. As of December, 2010 data collection on the SJS project ended. We are currently analyzing data and will soon enter the dissemination phase.   We expect to have a series of reports available during the summer of 2011.  Check out our website for updates, as we continue to add information about our data and findings. Juan Battle Principle Investigator - jbattle@gc.cuny.edu Antonio (Jay) Pastrana, Jr. Co-investigator - apastrana@jjay.cuny.edu Jessie Daniels Social Media & Project Management - jdaniels@hunter.cuny.edu Page 3 Members' Publications Books Multiracial Americans and Social Class Edited by Kathleen Odell Korgen As the racial hierarchy shifts and inequality between Americans widens, it is important to understand the impact of social class on the rapidly growing multiracial population. Multiracial Americans and Social Class is the first book on multiracial Americans to do so and fills a noticeable void in a growing market. In this book, noted scholars examine the impact of social class on the racial identity of multiracial Americans in highly readable essays from a range of social scientific perspectives. In doing so, they answer the following questions: What is the connection between class and race? Do you need to be middle class in order to be an 'honorary white'? What is the connection between social class and culture? Do you need to 'look' white or just 'act' white in order to be treated as an 'honorary white'? Can social class influence racial identity? How does the influence of social class compare across multiracial backgrounds? Multiracial Americans and Social Class is a key text for undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the fields of Sociology, Race and Ethnic Studies, Race Relations, and Cultural Studies. Yo Soy Negro: Blackness in Peru Tanya Maria Golash-Boza Yo Soy Negro addresses the question of how “blackness” is experienced in Peru primarily through the eyes of the inhabitants of a small coastal Afro-Peruvian town, both in terms of their day-to-day lives in that town and as migrant workers in Lima. Based on extensive ethnographic work in the country and informed by more than eighty interviews with Peruvians of African descent, this groundbreaking study explains how ideas of race, color, and mestizaje in Peru differ greatly from those held in other Latin American nations. Tanya Maria Golash-Boza explores the ways people in Peru talk about blackness and finds that the local discourse of blackness centers on skin color. The existence of this local discourse raises questions with regard to how we can conceptualize and theorize the African diaspora and calls for a more fluid conception of diaspora that allows for localized differences. The conclusion that Golash-Boza draws from her rigorous inquiry is that Peruvians of African descent give meaning to blackness without always referencing Africa, slavery, or black cultural forms. This represents a significant counterpoint to diaspora scholarship that points to the importance of slavery in defining blackness in Latin America as well as studies that place cultural and class differences at the center of racial discourses in the region. Page 4 The Obamas and a (Post) Racial America? Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey Foreword by Charles J. Ogletree The United States has taken a long and winding road to racial equality, especially as it pertains to relations between blacks and whites. On November 4, 2008, when Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the forty-fourth President of the United States and first black person to occupy the highest office in the land, many wondered whether that road had finally come to an end. Do we now live in a post-racial nation? According to this book's contributors, a more nuanced and contemporary analysis and measurement of racial attitudes undercuts this assumption. They contend that despite the election of the first black President and rise of his family as possibly the most recognized family in the world, race remains a salient issue-particularly in the United States. Looking beyond public behaviors and how people describe their own attitudes, the contributors draw from the latest research to show how, despite the Obama family's rapid rise to national prominence, many Americans continue to harbor unconscious, anti-black biases. But there are whispers of change. The Obama family's position may yet undermine, at the unconscious level, anti-black attitudes in the United States and abroad. The prominence of the Obamas on the world stage and the image they project may hasten the day when America is indeed post-racial, even at the implicit level. Twelve Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today Edited by Gregory S. Parks and Matthew W. Hughey Foreword by Lani Guinier When Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was questioned by the police on the front porch of his home in an affluent section of Cambridge, many people across the country reacted with surprise and disbelief. But African American men from coast to coast experienced painful recognition; “Gatesgate” was merely the very public manifestation of a phenomenon many black men experience regularly. In Twelve Angry Men, a dozen eloquent authors tell their own personal versions of this story. Among others, we hear from a Harvard law school student who was tackled by security guards on the streets of Manhattan; a federal prosecutor who was detained while walking in his own neighborhood in Washington, D.C.; a high school student in Colorado who was arrested for “loitering” in the subway station as he waited for the train home; a bike rider trailed by police cars in Austin, Texas; a professor at a Big Ten university in Iowa; a New York Times reporter; and the head of the ACLU’s racial profiling initiative, who was pursued by National Guardsmen after arriving on the red-eye in Boston’s Logan Airport. Here we have the full spectrum of African American men sharing the predicament of being law-abiding black men in America today. By turns angry, funny, bitter, and rueful, the effect of these first-person accounts is staggering, and will open the eyes of anyone who thinks we live in a “postracial” or “color-blind” America. Page 5 Articles Hughey, Matthew W. 2011. “Backstage Discourse and the Reproduction of White Masculinities.” The Sociological Quarterly 52: 132-153. Hughey, Matthew W. 2011. “Re-membering Black Greeks: Racial Memory and Identity in Stomp the Yard.” Critical Sociology 37(1): 103-123. Hughey, Matthew W. 2010. “A Paradox of Participation: Nonwhites in White Sororities and Fraternities.” Social Problems 57(4): 653-679. Hughey, Matthew W. 2010. “The White Savior Film and Reviewers’ Reception.” Symbolic Interaction 33(3): 475-496. Brown, Hana. 2011. "Refugees, Rights, and Race: How Legal Status Shapes Liberian Immigrants’ Relationship with the State." Social Problems 58:  144-163. Brown, Hana. 2010. "They Must Be Discontented: Racial Threat, Black Mobilization, and the Passage of School Closing Policies." Ethnic and Racial Studies 33: 1392-1411. Sohoni Deenesh and Vafa Amin. 2010. "The Fight to Be American: Military Naturalization and Asian Citizenship." Asian American Law Journal 17: 119-149. Congratulations to our members on their new publications! Page 6 BACK PAGE Society for the Study of Social Problems Purpose Statement : This Society shall be a non-profit corporation to promote and protect sociological research and teaching on significant problems of social life and, particularly, to encourage the work of young sociologists; to stimulate the application of scientific method and theory to the study of vital social problems; to encourage problem-centered social research; to foster cooperative relations among persons and organizations engaged in the application of scientific sociological findings to the formulation of social policies; to foster higher quality of life, social welfare, and positive social relations in society and the global community and to undertake any activity related thereto or necessary or desirable for the accomplishment of the foregoing purposes. Consider Sending Your Conference Paper to Social Problems Manuscripts for Social Problems should be prepared according to the style guide on the inside back cover of Social Problems. Authors should submit five copies of their manuscript plus a PC-compatible electronic file. These copies will not be returned. Please note that there is a non-refundable manuscript submission fee of $25. Online payment instructions will be found at the online submission website listed below. If you prefer to pay by check or money order, please make it payable to SSSP and mail to: Becky Pettit, Editor Social Problems University of Washington Department of Sociology Box 353340 Seattle, WA 98195-3340 206-543-4163 All papers accepted for publication pay a $100 fee to help pay for copy editing and other editorial expenses. Papers written by graduate students or the unemployed are exempt from this fee.  To submit a paper, please visit http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ucpress-sp Division Chair Contact Information: Marlese Durr Department of Sociology and Anthropology Wright State University 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001 Phone: (937) 775-2667 Fax: (937) 775-422 8 E-mail: marlese.durr@wright.edu Newsletter Editor : Kevin Moran PhD Program in Sociology CUNY Graduate Center Page 7