“This is a deeply researched, highly original, and passionately committed study of an important set of topics. It impressively brings together history and social science (and indeed hard science) to offer a dramatically revisionist account of the ways in which the concepts of race and ethnicity became distinct in U.S. intellectual and political life.”—David R. Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
— David R. Roediger, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“In the Shadow of Race asks us to think about the relationship between ‘ethnicity’ and ‘race’ in a wholly new way. In a sweeping analysis that covers historical and contemporary Jewish and Latino politics, census categories, and recent New York and Los Angeles mayoral elections, Victoria Hattam reveals how the assignation of certain groups as ethnicities has served to reinforce the racial inequality of other groups. This is top-rate scholarship and, moreover, a brave statement about the stakes of racial politics in our time.”
— Mae M. Ngai, Columbia University
“Elegantly structured and persuasively argued, In the Shadow of Race does a brilliant job of showing how the constitutive relationship between race and ethnicity formed over time rather than at a single moment. Victoria Hattam’s analysis of this dynamic is subtle and engaging, the product of a finely researched and well-thought-out project.”
— Desmond King, University of Oxford
“A suggestive, nuanced account of race and ethnicity’s conceptual double bind, complicating our understanding of group naming, identification, and politics.”
— Michael Hanchard, Johns Hopkins University
“Contemporary struggles are brilliantly illuminated by Hattam’s clear-sighted and courageous study. Her readings of Sharpton and Obama, Latino political alliances, the struggle over immigration, and the discourses of racial accusation show what is at stake in the contemporary politics of race and ethnicity.”
— Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania