An impassioned argument for reassessing America's understanding of race and ethnicity

Ronald Fernandez is Professor of Sociology in the Criminal Justice Department at Central Connecticut State University.

"...Fernandez, in leading us through this journey through the history of race in the United States, is also able to remind us of the interconnectedness of immigration, culture, and race.  He also reminds us of the importance of language, and the need to challenge the reified notions we all have about culture."
—Victor M. Rodriguez, Centro: Journal for the Center for Puerto Rican Studies

"This book is both powerful and important. Powerful for the testimony it provides from Americans of many different (and even mixed races) about their experiences. And important because there is a racial revolution underway that will upend race as we know it during the twenty-first century."
—John Kenneth White, Catholic University of America

"In this visionary, necessary book, Ronald Fernandez invents a new language to address age-old dilemmas of race and ethnicity. He goes well beyond boxes and labels, easy answers and academic jargon. Fernandez celebrates the unacknowledged reality of multiracial identity, the experience of the people he calls "fusions," and offers eloquent proof that so-called "illegal immigrants" must be included in the national dialogue on race. This is sociology at its best, clear-eyed, compassionate, intelligent and useful. The book is ultimately a clarion call for the embrace of our common humanity."
—Martín Espada, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and author, most recently, of The Republic of Poetry