The West, especially the Intermountain states, ranks among the whitest places in America, but this fact obscures the more complicated history of racial diversity in the region. In Making the White Man’s West, author Jason E. Pierce argues that since the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the American West has been a racially contested space. Using a nuanced theory of historical “whiteness,” he examines why and how Anglo-Americans dominated the region for a 120-year period.

In the early nineteenth century, critics like Zebulon Pike and Washington Irving viewed the West as a “dumping ground” for free blacks and Native Americans, a place where they could be segregated from the white communities east of the Mississippi River. But as immigrant populations and industrialization took hold in the East, white Americans began to view the West as a “refuge for real whites.” The West had the most diverse population in the nation with substantial numbers of American Indians, Hispanics, and Asians, but Anglo-Americans could control these mostly disenfranchised peoples and enjoy the privileges of power while celebrating their presence as providing a unique regional character. From this came the belief in a White Man’s West, a place ideally suited for “real” Americans in the face of changing world.

The first comprehensive study to examine the construction of white racial identity in the West, Making the White Man’s West shows how these two visions of the West—as a racially diverse holding cell and a white refuge—shaped the history of the region and influenced a variety of contemporary social issues in the West today.

Drawn by low-skilled work and the safety and security of rural life, increasing numbers of families from Latin America and Southeast Asia have migrated to the American heartland. In the path-breaking book A Midwestern Mosaic, J. Celeste Lay examines the effects of political socialization on native white youth growing up in small towns.

Lay studies five Iowa towns to investigate how the political attitudes and inclinations of native adolescents change as a result of rapid ethnic diversification. Using surveys and interviews, she discovers that native adolescents adapt very well to foreign-born citizens, and that over time, gaps diminish between diverse populations and youth in all-white/Anglo towns in regard to tolerance, political knowledge, efficacy, and school participation.

A Midwestern Mosaic looks at the next generation to show how exposure to ethnic and cultural diversity during formative years can shape political behavior and will influence politics in the future.

Contributors. Jaime R. Aguila. Rodolfo Casillas-R., Nora Faires, Maria Cristina Garcia, Delia Gonzáles de Reufels, Brian Gratton, Susan E. Gray, James N. Gregory, John Mason Hart, Dirk Hoerder, Dan Killoren, Sarah-Jane (Saje) Mathieu, Catherine O’Donnell, Kerry Preibisch, Lara Putnam, Bruno Ramirez, Angelika Sauer, Melanie Shell-Weiss, Yukari Takai, Omar S. Valerio-Jiménez, Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez

Based in a broad range of fields—including literature, history, African studies, Asian American studies, Asian studies, French and francophone studies, and Latin American studies—the contributors complicate ideas of minority cultural formations and challenge the notion that transnationalism is necessarily a homogenizing force. They cover topics as diverse as competing versions of Chinese womanhood; American rockabilly music in Japan; the trope of mestizaje in Chicano art and culture; dub poetry radio broadcasts in Jamaica; creole theater in Mauritius; and race relations in Salvador, Brazil. Together, they point toward a new theoretical vocabulary, one capacious enough to capture the almost infinitely complex experiences of minority groups and positions in a transnational world.

Contributors. Moradewun Adejunmobi, Ali Behdad, Michael Bourdaghs, Suzanne Gearhart, Susan Koshy, Françoise Lionnet, Seiji M. Lippit, Elizabeth Marchant, Kathleen McHugh, David Palumbo-Liu, Rafael Pérez-Torres, Jenny Sharpe, Shu-mei Shih , Tyler Stovall

The remarkable economic growth of Las Vegas between 1980 and 2007 created a population boom and a major increase in the ethnic and religious diversity of the city. Today, over 21 percent of the city’s population is foreign born, and over 30 percent speak a language other than English at home. The local court system offers interpreters in 82 languages, and in 2005/2006, for example, more than 11,000 people, originating from 138 countries, were naturalized there as American citizens.More Peoples of Las Vegas extends the survey of this city’s cosmopolitan population begun in The Peoples of Las Vegas (University of Nevada Press, 2005). As in the previous book, this volume includes well-established groups like the Irish and Germans, and recently arrived groups like the Ethiopians and Guatemalans. Essays describe the history of each group in Las Vegas and the roles they play in the life and economy of the city. The essays also explore the influence of modern telecommunications and accessible air travel, showing how these factors allow newcomers to create transnational identities and maintain ties with families and culture back home. They also examine the role of local institutions—including clubs, religious organizations, shops, restaurants, and newspapers and other media—in helping immigrants maintain their ethnic and religious identities and in disseminating national and even regional cultures of origin.More Peoples of Las Vegas adds to our awareness of the rich and varied ethnic and religious character of Las Vegans. In a broader context, it offers thoughtful perspectives on the impact of globalization on a major American city and on the realities of immigrant life in the twenty-first century.

Whether contrasting the transformation of Africa’s oldest museum, the South Africa Museum, with one of its newest, the Lwandle Migrant Labor Museum; offering an interpretation of the audio guide at the Guggenheim Bilbao; reflecting on the relative paucity of art museums in Peru and Cambodia; considering representations of slavery in the United States and Ghana; or meditating on the ramifications of an exhibition of Australian aboriginal art at the Asia Society in New York City, the contributors highlight the frictions, contradictions, and collaborations emerging in museums and heritage sites around the world. The volume opens with an extensive introductory essay by Ivan Karp and Corinne A. Kratz, leading scholars in museum and heritage studies.

Contributors. Tony Bennett, David Bunn, Gustavo Buntinx, Cuauhtémoc Camarena, Andrea Fraser, Martin Hall, Ivan Karp, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Corinne A. Kratz, Christine Mullen Kreamer, Joseph Masco, Teresa Morales, Howard Morphy, Ingrid Muan, Fred Myers, Ciraj Rassool, Vicente Razo, Fath Davis Ruffins, Lynn Szwaja, Krista A. Thompson, Leslie Witz, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto