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People avoid speaking about race in the presence of another racial group for fear of saying something wrong and creating friction. This was not the situation at JB’s, a small Mexican cantina located in one of Houston’s oldest Mexican barrios. Mexicans made up most of the regular patrons, but a small number of whites also visited the bar on a regular basis. This situation created the circumstances for race talk in which the Mexican patrons needled and criticized the white patrons because of their whiteness. The white patrons likewise criticized the Mexican patrons, but their remarks were not as strident in comparison to those they received. When Tatcho Mindiola visited the bar and heard the race talk, he realized that it was a unique situation. He thus became a regular patron, and over a three-year period kept notes on the racial exchanges he observed and heard, which form the basis of this insightful volume.

An illuminating, in-depth look at competition in suburban high schools with growing numbers of Asian Americans, where white parents are determined to ensure that their children remain at the head of the class.
 
The American suburb conjures an image of picturesque privilege: manicured lawns, quiet streets, and—most important to parents—high-quality schools. These elite enclaves are also historically white, allowing many white Americans to safeguard their privileges by using public schools to help their children enter top colleges. That’s changing, however, as Asian American professionals increasingly move into wealthy suburban areas to give their kids that same leg up for their college applications and future careers.
 
As Natasha Warikoo shows in Race at the Top, white and Asian parents alike will do anything to help their children get to the top of the achievement pile. She takes us into the affluent suburban East Coast school she calls “Woodcrest High,” with a student body about one-half white and one-third Asian American. As increasing numbers of Woodcrest’s Asian American students earn star-pupil status, many whites feel displaced from the top of the academic hierarchy, and their frustrations grow. To maintain their children’s edge, some white parents complain to the school that schoolwork has become too rigorous. They also emphasize excellence in extracurriculars like sports and theater, which maintains their children’s advantage.

Warikoo reveals how, even when they are bested, white families in Woodcrest work to change the rules in their favor so they can remain the winners of the meritocracy game. Along the way, Warikoo explores urgent issues of racial and economic inequality that play out in affluent suburban American high schools. Caught in a race for power and privilege at the very top of society, what families in towns like Woodcrest fail to see is that everyone in their race is getting a medal—the children who actually lose are those living beyond their town’s boundaries.

A thought-provoking look at how racial resentment, rather than racial prejudice alone, motivate a growing resistance among whites to improve the circumstances faced by racial minorities.

In Racial Resentment in the Political Mind, Darren W. Davis and David C. Wilson challenge the commonly held notion that all racial negativity, disagreements, and objections to policies that seek to help racial minorities stem from racial prejudice. They argue that racial resentment arises from just-world beliefs and appraisals of deservingness that help explain the persistence of racial inequality in America in ways more consequential than racism or racial prejudice alone. 

The culprits, as many White people see it, are undeserving people of color, who are perceived to benefit unfairly from, and take advantage of, resources that come at Whites’ expense—a worldview in which any attempt at modest change is seen as a challenge to the status quo and privilege. Yet, as Davis and Wilson reveal, many Whites have become racially resentful due to their perceptions that African Americans skirt the “rules of the game” and violate traditional values by taking advantage of unearned resources. Resulting attempts at racial progress lead Whites to respond in ways that retain their social advantage—opposing ameliorative policies, minority candidates, and other advancement on racial progress. Because racial resentment is rooted in beliefs about justice, fairness, and deservingness, ordinary citizens, who may not harbor racist motivations, may wind up in the same political position as racists, but for different reasons. 

A personal guide to the transformations, hard truths, profound pleasures, and infinite possibilities of aging

One May morning shortly before her seventy-fifth birthday, Andrea Gilats awoke to a startling, sudden spike in consciousness that she was about to leap from older to old. Radical Endurance is the story of the reckoning that followed, a candid, clear-eyed journey of discovery through the pitfalls and possibilities of aging. Facing the realities of her age, Gilats explores her fears of failing health and loss of independence while navigating the terrain of an ageist culture. But among such troubling uncertainties, she also encounters the singular pleasures of “growing up again,” of finding fresh and unexpected ways of understanding herself and making meaning during this new era of her life.

Reflecting on moments in midlife, from the painful adjustments of widowhood to life-altering medical diagnoses, Gilats arrives at a valuable insight: the journey toward old age begins sooner and lasts longer than we might imagine. Yet from any moment in this process, old age is the future, brimming with potential. In her account, Gilats combines personal and professional experience, offering firsthand knowledge of a stage of life that we each meet in our own time, in our own way. She also contributes the learning and wisdom of her heroes and mentors, including feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich, poet May Sarton, singer and activist Joan Baez, psychiatrist Gene Cohen, archaeologist Arthur C. Parker, physician Jane Hodgson, and Nobel literature laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer.

Enlightening and deeply moving, alive to the sadness and joy of time passing, Radical Endurance is a guide and a companion through the experience of growing old as well as an unconventional coming-of-age story, celebrating a new stage of life when we need it most.

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For many Koreans, Latin America is foreign and unfamiliar, but popular television shows have generated considerable interest in this region of the Global South. In Reckoning with the World, Benjamin Han explores this phenomenon by providing a close reading of Korean TV programs that take place, are shot in, or depict Latin America. These dramas, reality shows, and travel documentaries present South Koreans with an understanding of themselves by projecting an illusion of difference that underscores themes of identity, race, and modernity.

Historical dramas like The Land of Humans, about Korean migrants in Mexico, consider diasporic identity and nationalism, while the fantasy series Secret Garden explores issues of modernity. In addition, the TV drama Encounter and the entertainment show Traveler contrast the cultures of global Korea with Cuba. As these programs create appealing storytelling, characters, and aesthetics, they inspire and resonate with audiences and fans across the globe. However, Korean television’s imaginary of Latin America is not about its investment in fostering greater interculturality with Latin American nations and their cultures but instead projects a façade of progressive racial and cultural politics shaping Korea’s reckoning with the world.

As the news shows us every day, contemporary American culture and politics are rife with people who demonize their enemies by projecting their own failings and flaws onto them. But this is no recent development. Rather, as John Corrigan argues here, it’s an expression of a trauma endemic to America’s history, particularly involving our long domestic record of religious conflict and violence.

Religious Intolerance, America, and the World spans from Christian colonists’ intolerance of Native Americans and the role of religion in the new republic’s foreign-policy crises to Cold War witch hunts and the persecution complexes that entangle Christians and Muslims today. Corrigan reveals how US churches and institutions have continuously campaigned against intolerance overseas even as they’ve abetted or performed it at home. This selective condemnation of intolerance, he shows, created a legacy of foreign policy interventions promoting religious freedom and human rights that was not reflected within America’s own borders. This timely, captivating book forces America to confront its claims of exceptionalism based on religious liberty—and perhaps begin to break the grotesque cycle of projection and oppression.

An insightful rethinking of the meaning of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom.
 
The Founders understood religious liberty to be an inalienable natural right. Vincent Phillip Muñoz explains what this means for church-state constitutional law, uncovering what we can and cannot determine about the original meanings of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses and constructing a natural rights jurisprudence of religious liberty.  

Drawing on early state constitutions, declarations of religious freedom, Founding-era debates, and the First Amendment’s drafting record, Muñoz demonstrates that adherence to the Founders’ political philosophy would lead neither to consistently conservative nor consistently liberal results. Rather, adopting the Founders’ understanding would lead to a minimalist church-state jurisprudence that, in most cases, would return authority from the judiciary to the American people. Thorough and convincing, Religious Liberty and the American Founding is key reading for those seeking to understand the Founders’ political philosophy of religious freedom and the First Amendment Religion Clauses.

In the face of rapid change and an ever-widening constellation of challenges, it’s crucial for library leaders to pull back to the question of “why?” Plotting a sustainable way forward depends upon recommitting ourselves to our underlying values, such as customer service and community-building, while fostering the improvements that change makes possible. With passion, patience, and fortitude, libraries can stride confidently into the future. In this book, noted speakers and consultants Bignoli and Stara speak directly to library directors, managers, administrators, and technology staff, offering concrete guidance on setting or resetting strategic priorities. Taking an interconnected and specific approach to planning for and strengthening the library environment as a whole, their book

• discusses why libraries should embrace change as a fundamental part of library life; 
• explores how to harness rapid change to provide more responsive, user-centered library service;
• addresses the ways in which libraries straddle the physical and the digital, in areas such as service provision and collections, illuminating how they overlap and can be improved using similar philosophies;
• presents both a comprehensive overview of library technologies as well as related team and change management advice, all grounded in user experience principles;
• shows how the concepts of sustainability and flexibility apply to physical space planning and design, from furniture selection and arrangement to infrastructure; and
• provides sound guidance on project management, problem solving, preparing for future challenges, personal reflection and self-care, and other leadership topics.

2023 Best Book in the Humanities, Latin American Studies Association Mexico Section

Challenging conventional narratives of Mexican history, this book establishes race-making as a central instrument for the repression of social upheaval in nineteenth-century Mexico rather than a relic of the colonial-era caste system.

Many scholars assert that Mexico’s complex racial hierarchy, inherited from Spanish colonialism, became obsolete by the turn of the nineteenth century as class-based distinctions became more prominent and a largely mestizo population emerged. But the residues of the colonial caste system did not simply dissolve after Mexico gained independence. Rather, Ana Sabau argues, ever-present fears of racial uprising among elites and authorities led to persistent governmental techniques and ideologies designed to separate and control people based on their perceived racial status, as well as to the implementation of projects for development in fringe areas of the country.

Riot and Rebellion in Mexico traces this race-based narrative through three historical flashpoints: the Bajío riots, the Haitian Revolution, and the Yucatán’s caste war. Sabau shows how rebellions were treated as racially motivated events rather than political acts and how the racialization of popular and indigenous sectors coincided with the construction of “whiteness” in Mexico. Drawing on diverse primary sources, Sabau demonstrates how the race war paradigm was mobilized in foreign and domestic affairs and reveals the foundations of a racial state and racially stratified society that persist today.

Argentina, once heralded as the future of capitalist progress, has a long history of economic volatility. In 2001–2002, a financial crisis led to its worst economic collapse, precipitating a dramatic currency devaluation, the largest sovereign default in world history, and the flight of foreign capital. Protests and street blockades punctuated a moment of profound political uncertainty, epitomized by the rapid succession of five presidents in four months. Since then, Argentina has fought economic fires on every front, from inflation to the cost of utilities and depressed industrial output. When things clearly aren't working, when the constant churning of booms and busts makes life almost unlivable, how does our deeply compromised order come to seem so inescapable? How does critique come to seem so blunt, even as crisis after crisis appears on the horizon? What are the lived effects of that sense of inescapability?

Anthropologist Sarah Muir offers a cogent meditation on the limits of critique at this historical moment, drawing on deep experience in Argentina but reflecting on a truly global condition. If we feel things are being upended in a manner that is ongoing, tumultuous, and harmful, what would we need to do—and what would we need to give up—to usher in a revitalized critique for today's world? Routine Crisis is an original provocation and a challenge to think beyond the limits of exhaustion and reimagine a form of criticism for the twenty-first century.