Charles McClain's illuminating new study probes Chinese efforts to battle manifold discrimination—in housing; employment; and education—in nineteenth-century America. Challenging the stereotypical image of a passive; insular group; McClain reveals a politically savvy population capable of mobilizing to fight mistreatment. He draws on English- and Chinese-language documents and rarely studied sources to chronicle the ways the Chinese sought redress and change in American courts.McClain focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area; the home of almost one-fifth of the fifty thousand Chinese working in California in 1870. He cites cases in which Chinese laundrymen challenged the city of San Francisco's discriminatory building restrictions; and lawsuits brought by parents to protest the exclusion of Chinese children from public schools. While vindication in the courtroom did not always bring immediate change (Chinese schoolchildren in San Francisco continued to be segregated well into the twentieth century); the Chinese community's efforts were instrumental in establishing several legal landmarks.In their battles for justice; the Chinese community helped to clarify many judicial issues; including the parameters of the Fourteenth Amendment and the legal meanings of nondiscrimination and equality. Discussing a wide range of court cases and gleaning their larger constitutional significance; In Search of Equality brings to light an important chapter of American cultural and ethnic history. It should attract attention from American and legal historians; ethnic studies scholars; and students of California culture.
#1824292 in Books 1994-03-04Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.02 x .88 x 5.98l; 1.55 #File Name: 0520073509336 pages
Review
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful. intriguing but ultimately unfulfillingBy Daniel LossRobert Bonfil's Jewish Life in Renaissance Italy (originally published in Italian as Gli Ebrei in Italia nell'epoca del Rinascimento and translated into English by Anthony Oldcorn) seeks to establish a new approach to Italian Jewish history and; indeed; Jewish history in general. His account of the existing historiography on the subject describes two contrasting themes: one that describes the gradual; almost inevitable; assimilation of Jewish culture to mainstream Christian culture (and thus indicative of a willingness on the part of Christians to assimilate Jews to their dominant culture) and one that focuses on the persecution of Jews by Christians. Bonfil sums up his approach in the afterward as "seeking the definition of an identity in the context of a nascent awareness of the Jewish self as organically interrelated with the Christian Other; without for all that becoming confused with the Other and still less annihilated by it." In other words; Bonfil sees the assertion of Jewish identity 1) as necessarily relational 2) involving the same forms; themes; etc. as Christian culture. In some instances; it is difficult to reconcile these two aspects as self-assertion; as it is all too easy to view adoption of what Bonfil insists are "neutral" components of the broader Renaissance culture as assimilation to Christian norms rather than affirming Jewish identity. Bonfil succeeds in demonstrating this process in certain cases and in outlining a new methodology for others to pursue.Bonfil is most convincing when discussing the how the cultural production of rabbis during the Italian Renaissance imported forms from the broader context of the Renaissance yet still forged a uniquely Jewish identity. Unfortunately; he fails to demonstrate how this model of self-assertion held in other contexts of Jewish culture.Taken as a whole; Bonfil's work is intriguing but ultimately unconvincing. His claim that assertion of Jewish identity took place in relation to Christians and importing aspects of Renaissance culture is a plausible one. Unfortunately; he only succeeds in demonstrating it in limited cases. One cannot help but ask; "What about the Jews who weren't rabbis? What about the average Jew?" In other words; Bonfil's hypothesis needs further exploration from below rather than from above.0 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy AIresearcherexcellent
