This post is about doing research at National Archives 2 which is in College Park, MD. I haven’t yet made it to National Archives 1 which is at 700 Pennsylvania Ave in downtown DC, but I am planning to go there and will update this entry once I’ve had some experience doing research over there.

National Archives 2 is, according to an exhibit in the building’s basement, the largest archival building in the world. It was completed in 1993 and cost above 250 million dollars to build. It is a pretty modern facility with a bright and airy research room – nothing like the damp and dusty basement I had envisioned.

It is on Adelphi Road in College Park, MD, about a mile away from the large University of Maryland campus.

College Park: There is not much in College Park despite the massive UMD campus. College Park is essentially a DC suburb, and like all suburbia, if you don’t have a car here, be sure to stay close to a bus line. I am living within walking distance from the archives and while the convenience of walking to the archives is great, the inconvenience of lugging groceries from Target far away on public transport is not. So, choose your location wisely. To get to College Park, you can fly either to Baltimore or to any of DC’s airports. You can use public transport to get to College Park, but I used Supershuttle because I had luggage. Supershuttle costs about $35 one way from Baltimore and $30 from DC airports.

Public Transport: There are two bus lines that will take you to archives: C8 and R3. You can check out the timings and schedules on Ihttp://www.wmata.com/  If you’re planning to live in College Park, try to live close to one of these lines. C8 runs Mon-Sat and R3 runs Mon-Fri. No Sunday service on either lines (which sucks, so if you can, try also to live close to a metro station or some other bus line that actually runs on Sundays. Otherwise, you’d basically be stuck at home on Sundays despite DC being so close by).

The closest Metro stations are Prince George’s Plaza and College Park Metro Station, both on the Green line. On Saturdays there is a free shuttle running to and from Prince George’s and the Archives. The schedule can be found online or in the Archives itself. C8 connects with the College Park Metro Station while R3 connects with the Prince George’s Plaza.

It takes a good 30 minutes or so to get from either of these metro stations to downtown DC. Don’t bother with the fare cards or paying for  public transport in cash – Buy a SmarTrip card. It’s 5 bucks but well worth it.

All this being said, if you can bring your car over here, bring it! I wish I had.

Food/Groceries: There is a cafeteria and a convenience store inside the Archives. Cafeteria serves breakfast 7-9am and lunch 11-2pm. I haven’t made it there for breakfast yet, but I am sure it’s great. For lunch, there’s usually a salad  bar, a deli, a grill, sandwiches, and two hot entres for the days – one vegetarian, one non-vegetarian. If you’re vegan, you’re out of luck except perhaps for the salad bar. I don’t think I’ve had a vegan meal since I came to the archives.

There is a very nice seating area both indoors and outdoors adjacent to the cafe. Coffee is available in the cafe until about 3:30pm after which you can get some for a dollar from the vending machine. (They have all sorts of vending machines, and there’s a microwave for general use as well).

The cafe is CASH ONLY.

There are plenty of grocery stores in College Park, but they’re all in strip malls. I have yet to come across a stand alone neighborhood grocery store. There is a mall and a Target right across from Prince George’s Plaza station and that is the place I’ve found most convenient. (If you have the resources, check out Atlantic Supermarket on University Blvd. It’s an international food market largely serving the Latino/a population in College Park. I have never seen so many varieties of so many different things).

Your first day at the National Archives: Bring a photo ID with you. Also try to get there as early in the day as possible to ensure that you can actually get started on your research. When you get there, you will go through a 20 minute powerpoint orientation and be issued a researcher card. You will need to keep the researcher card with you AT ALL TIMES so make sure you guard it well.

You will also get a “property pass” on which the security personnel will note down the serial numbers of all your electronics (laptops, cameras, scanners, etc). You will need the “property pass” to take electronics into the research room and to take them out. If you lose your “property pass” while in the research room, I have no clue what you’ll do.

No food or drinks are allowed in the research room. If you wish to carry any papers into the research room, you will need to get them stamped. NARA does not allow people to take notebooks inside. They forbid ink pens as well, but I’ve seen people sneak them in their pockets or coin purses. Loose leaf paper, pencils, and note cards are available for use inside the research room. If you need to take a book, you will have to explain to the staff why it’s essential for you to have access to that book and they will stamp the book for you as well.

You can leave everything you’re not taking with you up to the research room in the lockers in the basement. The lockers require a quarter to lock, but you’ll get your quarter back once you return the keys.

Doing research: I am primarily doing textual research here, so this information is regarding that. Once you get to the research room, you can consult with an archivist regarding what documents you want to look at. I would recommend having a pretty clear idea of what it is that you’re interested in looking at. I spent hours on the ARC (Archival Research Catalog on the NARA website) ahead of my visit and brought print-outs of all the things I wanted to look at. Remember that the archivists are probably not specialists in your area, so you need to be able to tell them almost exactly what you’re there to look at.

That being said, not everything is cataloged on the ARC. I found a whole treasure-trove of material that was not on the ARC by showing one of the archivists a citation from an old book (back from the 1980s when they didn’t have online catalogs) and telling him that I wanted to look at that particular file series. He actually physically went back into the vault and found 23 boxes of material for me.

The archivists will also put in your requests for you. You might wish to time your first visit carefully because there are only 4 or 5 pull times during the day. The first pull time is at 10am, the next at 11am, and then the next at 1:30 pm. And they say that the material is usually ready to look at within an hour and a half of a pull time. So, if you put in your request at 12pm, they’ll estimate that your material will be ready to look at around 2:30-3pm (they’re usually faster than this). Once your material is out, you can place a hold on it initially for up to three days. If you have materials on hold, then you can also come and look at them on Saturdays when there are no pull times. If you’re unable to look at those materials for three days, you can ask them to put an extended hold on the material in which case they’ll hold it for 5 business days.

Making copies: There are at least 4 copiers in the research room (there might be more that I haven’t seen yet). (There is a copy center toward the end of the room with tons of photocopiers and other fancy machines like book copiers that I have no clue how to use). Each copy is 25 cents, so if you plan to make a lot of copies, make sure to budget appropriately. Printing from microfilms is even more expensive: 50 cents a sheet. You will need to get a “document and equipment review” sheet before you can start making copies, so make sure to do that once you have your material on your desk. This seems to be mostly a technicality since not once has any of the staff members really reviewed either my documents or equipment. If your material is “classified” you can get a “de-class” slip from them. Again, this seems to be more of a formality than anything else. Basically, as long as you’re using the work for academic purposes, they’re cool with you copying anything you like.

You can also bring your own scanner and scan pages. I’ve been using a camera to take pictures because it’s cheap and faster than a scanner (you’ll be surprised how readable the copies are on the computer screen). Based on your budget, you can pick the best copying method, or a combination thereof. No matter which method you’re using though, I would recommend buying an external hard drive and backing up all your material!

Library Access: The archives building apparently has a library, but I haven’t had the occasion to check it out yet. If you need access to an academic library, there are ways to get a library card to check materials out from the UMD library. I had to get a letter from my adviser saying that I was a PhD student and in the area doing research. Check out the UMD library website or email them for more info.

Finally, remember that the research room is open Monday-Tuesday 9-5pm, Wed-Fri 9-9pm and Sat 9-5pm. There is a shuttle that runs on the hour every hour to Archives 1 except on Saturdays. The website says that researchers can use it on a space-available basis – I’ve never once seen it fill up and I’ll definitely be using it a week or so from now. Also, the staff at NARA is extremely nice and very helpful – don’t be afraid to ask questions! Lets just say that most of the staff at NARA is extremely nice and very helpful. If you need help, try to locate the full-time staff that works there, not the students whose response to pretty much anything you ask is “I don’t know.”

I think that’s all I have now. If you have questions, please feel free to post in the comments. I’ll make another post once I’ve been to Archives 1 and will definitely keep updating this one as new things come up.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Here are the things you need to know: General Zia-ul-Haq, sixth president (read military dictator) of Pakistan, who is most remembered for the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, for the Islamization of Pakistan, and for his aiding of the Mujahideen with the support of the United States during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, was killed mysteriously in an air crash in 1988. Not much is known about the exact cause of the crash and conspiracy theories abound. In A Case of Exploding Mangoes, the suspects for Zia-ul-Haq’s death include: our protagonist Ali Shigri who wants to avenge the (supposed) killing of his father, his friend/lover Baby O, a tapeworm, a blind woman’s curse, other disgruntled military officers, a crow, the secretary-general of the Sweepers Union, and a case of mangoes (I don’t think I’ve missed anyone).

How does it all come together, you ask? I don’t know, but it does. And it does so brilliantly and with a dark sense of humor. The dustiness and messiness of the subcontinent comes through, as does the paunchiness and sloppiness of Zia-ul-Haq and the fucked-up-ness and the Americanness of the Americans (I don’t know how else to put it).

For once, the reviews didn’t lie.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

I rarely read novels these days, so when I read a stellar review for this one in Time Out NY, my interest was piqued enough that I picked up a copy of this at the public library. I feel like I need to quote a few lines from the review to explain my incredible disappointment with this book:

With tangible descriptions and characters who understand the world with all five senses, Bender transforms what seems like a beguiling premise for a quirky short story—like those in her collection Willful Creatures—into a complicated novel with significant emotional heft. Bender explores every facet and implication of Rose’s condition, the specifics of which feel deliciously plausible (the emotions in baked goods are “the most potent, having been built for the longest time from the smallest of parts”). The delicacy with which Bender captures Rose’s tastes makes this not just a deeply felt novel but one of the most inventive pieces of food writing in recent memory.

The most inventive pieces of food writing? I beg to differ. So, here’s the plot in a few words: When she’s 9 years old, Rose discovers that she can “taste” the moods/emotions of people, even the ones they aren’t aware of, in the foods they make. So, she can taste her mother’s adultery in the food she makes, or the financial worries of lettuce pickers in burgers, cold factories in the food she makes herself. The whole set-up is very familiar to anyone who’s watched Para agua como chocolate, and given my penchant for magical realism, I thought I would enjoy this book.

But I didn’t. And I can’t really put my finger on why exactly. Was it the flat writing? Was it the immensely forced descriptiveness of it? For some reason, descriptions like: “It happened for the first time on a Tuesday afternoon, a warm spring day in the flatlands near Hollywood, a light breeze moving east from the ocean and stirring the black-eyed pansy petals newly planted in our flower boxes” (3) seem incredibly unnecessary and verbose to me. Indeed, there is nothing pithy about this kind of writing which just grated upon my nerves and seemed to stand in the way of the story Bender was trying to tell, which never really got off the ground.

Also, I quickly got bored of the the travails of 9-year-old Rose. I kept waiting for Rose to grow up, which she doesn’t do until the last few pages of the book, and to do something interesting with her powers, which she never does. In fact, I am not sure if I am supposed to be intrigued by Rose or feel sympathetic toward her. I couldn’t bring myself to do either partly because Rose is so imbued with everyone else’s feelings that we never really find out how she really feels, and partly because I can’t help but feel disdain toward a character who waits until she’s almost an adult to cook a meal from scratch because she’s so afraid to find out how she’s going to feel when she eats the food she has cooked herself.

There are also too many loose ends. For example, the brother’s “condition” just didn’t make any sense to me. I am sure his turning into furniture and disappearing acts have some deep metaphorical meanings which I am not privy to. Also, if Rose’s parents’ marriage is so on the rocks, why does no one every talk of separation? What is it exactly that keeps this incredibly dysfunctional family together? And I found the whole 1950s picture of a white (of course, they are never identified as white, but what else could they be) family in American suburbia with a mother who watches cars waiting for a father who shouts “I’m home” when he gets back from work incredibly silly and stale.

It might seem from this review that I really hated this novel. I actually didn’t. In fact, I read the novel in a day flat. It was a nice break from pouring over immigration law. But what I hated the most was the corporate publishing industry that for some reason seemed so incredibly visible underneath the flowery words and the fact that I got lured into it by a hyped up review.

Deportation Nation: Outsiders in American History

I always wonder if people who know me think that I am paranoid when I talk about deportation. I’ve often justified the extra precautions I take while driving, while participating in protests, while partying, while doing anything that has the possibility of attracting police attention, by telling people about how even breaking the most mundane laws can potentially trigger deportation proceedings for immigrants. With the number of people being deported hitting new highs under the current administration and with implementation of new programs like “Secure Communities” (as disingenuous of an appellation if there ever was one), I know that my fears are not baseless. However, for someone who is not an immigrant, it can be easy to underestimate the extent and the depth of the deportation dragnet. For these folks, I recommend that they read Deportation Nation.

Deportation Nation is essentially a legal history of the current deportation regime. Even though it isn’t particularly heavy on legal terminology, it does provide oftentimes lengthy descriptions of case law and administrative proceedings, thus making for a tedious read at times. Overall, however, the book’s argument that deportation is a “powerful tool of discretionary social control, a key feature of the national security state, and a most tangible component of the recurrent episodes of xenophobia that have bedeviled our nation of immigrants” (5) is extremely compelling and fairly well illustrated.

Kastroom examines the roots of deportation in colonial laws that controlled movements of the poor, expulsion of people from their territories including Indian removal and the “Acadian Deportation,” fugitive slave laws, and the Alien and Sedition Acts of the 1790s to trace the rise of Congressional extra-Constitutional plenary power over immigration and deportation. I actually had to look at a dictionary to fully understand what “plenary  power” means. Here’s what “plenary” means according to one dictionary: “full; complete; entire; absolute; unqualified: plenary powers.” In relation to deportation and immigration law, what that means is that Congress has “inherent” sovereign powers to control immigration and deportation. I.e. Congress can do what it sees fit with immigrants, who it lets in, who it throws out, all with practically no judicial review. Immigrants essentially possess practically no constitutional rights that Congress is bound to respect and can be deported for any reason that Congress sees fit (in the past these reasons have included belonging to a certain race, belonging to the Communist Party, holding certain ideas, for committing crimes, or for simply being present in the country when the government no longer wishes so. Currently, these reasons can be applied retroactively. I.e. if you were held guilty of shoplifting twenty years ago, you can still be deported today regardless of how you have lived your life since then). This sounds draconian by any measure, and completely antithetical to any notions of justice, freedom, equality, or fairness that this country prides itself on, but it’s true. And this is why I am not being paranoid when I talk about deportation. As an immigrant, in the government’s eyes, I am on “probation;” a “guest” who can be thrown out at the government’s discretion. Ideally, they will not deport someone simply because they don’t like their face, but with the lack of appropriate judicial review for most deportation proceedings, they technically can if they want to.

As Kastroom looks at various historical incidents of mass deportation, including deportation of Chinese immigrants, deportation of labor leaders, anarchists and people who opposed the government for any reason, deportation of Mexican immigrants during the  Great Depression and during Operation Wetback, the internment of Japanese Americans, etc. he argues that deportation law has historically functioned as a form of “post-entry social control” law which the government has used to limit the movement, thoughts, and activities of immigrants.

I have grossly over-simplified Kastroom’s arguments here, but I think it is incredibly important that more people understand the deportation system and become aware of it: Naturalized citizens are not exempt – there have been countless cases of denaturalization and deportation. It technically isn’t a big step for the government to begin targeting U.S.-born citizens with tactics it had formally reserved only for immigrants (one can see this in the ongoing high-profile case of torture of a U.S.-born citizen). As Kastroom argues throughout the book, it is important that we choose the country’s “best principles to guide us” (246) to overcome its worst tendencies. Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.

The Karma of Brown Folk,

I know I’ve written about this book before, but it is only now that I’ve actually managed to get around to reading all of it.

Let me say this first – I don’t think anymore that the book is “badly written.” Or that Prashad has a tendency to “rant.” I will say though that the book is – how do I put this? – “meandering.” I.e. it has a tendency to cover several topics in the span of a few pages,  (often by giving several examples that are not very detailed and which make you turn to the notes so you can find out the sources and mark them for future reading) and that even thought the overall focus remains the same, the book doesn’t always “flow.” I don’t think this is an indication of “bad writing,” but definitely something that takes a little getting used to.

But this post is not about Prashad’s writing style (which, in fact, one could say might be of the kind that enables something new to be found and something new to ponder over every time you pick up the book). It is about the central question that frames his book: “How does it feel to be a solution?” If anyone is wondering, this question is evocative of Du Bois’s “How does it feel to be a problem?” But while Du Bois’s question was aimed at black Americans, Prashad’s is aimed at desis (people of South Asian origin, here specifically those living in the United States). The question is referring to the model minority status that is often granted to Asian Americans. The desi as a model minority is seen to possess a unique cultural heritage and set of skills that has allowed him/her in the accumulation of capital in the United States through hard work and without the benefits of any government handouts. As such, the desi as model minority becomes a weapon in the hands of white supremacy which uses it to chastise black Americans for failing to pull themselves out of poverty and for advocating for strong social security nets or for basic civil rights. “If the Asians can do it, why can’t the ‘blacks?’”

I have read a lot about the myth of the model minority. But I had never been asked how I’ve felt about being the model minority. I think the question deserves an honest answer, though one that might be too complex to be sufficiently put into words here – As someone who feels the increasing need for class struggle and working-class solidarity, I often think about how my ability to participate in these struggles, both intellectually and socially, is hampered by my middle-class background (as a daughter of parents who are both beneficiaries of the socialist state in India) as well as own sense of how others perceive my class status. Here in the United States, my own class-status is a little ambiguous. As a student, I don’t make much money. But, I know that save for some unimaginable scenario, I will never be homeless, I will never go hungry. My parents’ income and savings don’t amount to much once converted to dollars, but I do have a fairly sturdy security net. When I take public transit in my city,  I know that even though I am brown and a person of color, I am not like most of the other working-class people of color who also use these facilities. I often wonder if I ever do talk to someone about the need for solidarity, they would dismiss my thoughts as similar to that of the hipsters who frequent their coffee lounges and discuss Marx while sipping their favorite cup of joe. (Which is why, if I attend a rally or a meeting, I stay quiet. I listen. Not just because of fear that my ideas would be undermined, but also because I know I have a lot to learn).

Being a desi, there is also a great amount of cultural and familial pressure to avoid political or intellectual activism and to aim for economic success instead. The fact that I am still in graduate school studying something which is not “useful” from a capitalist standpoint or which does not prepare me for the “job market” in any realistic sense means that even a 5 minute conversation with another desi can sometimes turn into an immense spike of blood pressure and lots of defensive posturing.  I have met no small number of desis who are perfectly happy, who even revel in, their status as model minorities. My own sister, barely a few months after her arrival to the United States with a Bachelor’s in tow and a husband making enough money to send her to grad school without funding told me that the reason why Indians were the richest ethnic minority in the United States is because “we work hard” while “the blacks” don’t. Just a few months ago, when I asked her how her apartment hunting was going as she prepared to move to a large metropolitan city, she said that she had managed to find a place where there weren’t “too many blacks (kalle) around.”

I don’t wish to imply here that I am somehow more enlightened than other desis or my sister. My own process of understanding why statements like the ones above are problematic was a long, hard one. So, how do I feel about being the solution? I feel angry. I also feel guilt. And shame. Part of the reason is that a result of all the things that Prashad talks about in relation to the desi community here in the United States – prevalence of anti-Black racism, desire to accumulate capital, a tendency to create the home as a space for authentic culture and women as subordinate to men, a turn to hindutva, and a general apathy toward activism and solidarity with other people of color – has been that I have essentially closed myself off from the desi community. I am not an active member of the Indian Student Association on campus, I don’t visit the local temple, I don’t do “Holi night” or “Diwali night,” I did not seek viewing parties for the world cup and I don’t watch Bollywood movies or listen to Bollywood music. In fact, these settings make me incredibly uncomfortable. I hesitate to admit to other desis (and to people in general) that I am not “proud” to be an Indian and that I don’t believe in religion or god (faithlessness and lack of patriotism are probably the worst crimes you can commit as a desi. Even my family does not know this about me). The only Indians I actively associate with are members of my immediate family.  I am also in an inter-racial relationship. I do feel a sense of guilt surrounding all this – when everybody in academia talks about the need to write for the “community,” my response usually is – I don’t want to write for the community, I want to write about the various modes of oppression and discrimination that operate within the community, and that of a community which I am not actively a part of. I have to say that I am pretty “isolated” as of now in terms of the fact that I am not an active member of any “community.” I often wonder if this is a symptom of my upbringing, my own personality traits, or just the place where I happen to live in. I know there is a strong tradition of activism within the South Asian community here in the United States and I feel that I need to make more of an active effort to find like minded desis who will not judge me for my apparent lack of “authenticity.”

So, how do I feel about being a solution? I want to stop being a solution. I want to be the thorn on the side of white supremacy, not be used by it to oppress other people of color. I am trying to do exactly this – intellectually, actively. It will take a long time though.

When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed

Before I tell you a little bit about this book, I should probably note that this is my first post in more than a year. Lots of things have happened over the past few years (I haven’t consistently posted on this blog for almost two years now and hopefully this will not be my only post for the year 2011). I am now officially a PhD candidate (having passed my comps recently, yay!) I still prefer to stay anonymous because this blog is in no way intended to be an academic venture and I don’t want a trail of somewhat shoddy writing done on the side to come haunt me when I go out looking for a job.

I stumbled upon this book on Amazon one day while clicking through the “Customers who bought this also bought this” tab (it’s a great tool to discover books). I am relatively familiar with the subject of the book (immigrants and public health discourse) and was curious to see what, if anything, new Markel was adding to it. Markel, according to the flap on the cover, is “Professor of the History of Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan…” Markel, thus, is one of those few folks who successfully manage to straddle disciplines in humanities and in the sciences. I have read plenty of book by historians on the subject and was curious to see what Markel, as a medical practitioner would bring to the table.

If you have already read Nayan Shah’s Contagious Divides, Alexandra Minna Stern’s Eugenic Nation, Alan Kraut’s Silent Travelers, and Natalia Molina’s Fit to the Citizens? as I have, then there is little in this book that will strike you as new. Markel’s book is divided into six chapters, each dealing with a disease that at one point or another in American history was determined to be of immigrant origin, and to combat which, the state undertook measures that with sufficient hindsight can only be described as anti-immigrant and racist. The diseases are: TB, Bubonic plague, Trachoma, Typhus, AIDS, and Cholera. In each case, Markel identifies the immigrant group in question, the nature of the disease, and efforts by state agencies to combat the disease. The result is a book that is a fairly easy read and chock full of incidents that are bound to shock (for example, did you know that one method U.S. authorities used to combat typhus was to compel Mexican immigrants who wished to cross the border to bathe in a mixture of kerosene, gasoline, and vinegar? Needless to say, someone flicked a match once to light a cigeratte and disaster followed).

What is missing in the book, however, is a clear explication of how and why exactly certain diseases became racialized in the way they did. While Markel’s book does emphasize the discriminatory nature of the way state authorities dealt with public health concerns, it overall gives one the impression that the primary reason immigrants were targeted was because they were of foreign-origin, and that while their race or class status did play a role, these were at best marginal in determining authorities’ responses. Some of the books cited above do a much better job in providing historical context, in underscoring the racial and eugenic aspect of these public health concerns (Shah, Kraut, Stern) and also in showing how the response of authorities varied with the immigrant group in question (Molina).

Also, the overall tone of Markel’s book leaves one feeling paranoid about the likelihood of an infectious disease epidemic in the United States brought on by the infected body of some harried immigrant from the “developing world” (aka person of color). While Markel rails against harsh measures targeting immigrant groups, his book as a whole does rather well in hardening the construct of the United States as a safe haven from diseases whose defenses are being destroyed by the growing stream of poor, infected immigrants. I don’t believe that this was intentional on Markel’s part (just as his diagnosis of cholera among Rawandan refugees in Detroit when they were merely suffering from Rotavirus was not intentional either. Yet, it is interesting to note that the  ”symptoms” that influenced Markel the most in making his diagnosis was the patients’ immigrant status, the color of their skin (even though he doesn’t say so), and their country of origin. Markel may have had good reasons to jump to a diagnosis of cholera, but it certainly is interesting to see how race and immigrant status factored in his diagnostic process. Markel ultimately made the same mistake as medical practitioners had done before him, but who did not have modern medical testing to set them straight).

Indeed, Markel’s prescription toward the end of the book to accept the fact that immigrants will bring in infectious diseases no matter how much we seek to prevent this from happening and that the United States must find more humane ways to deal with this than it has historically merely solidifies the idea that one should be suspicious of immigrant bodies and that the United States stays relatively healthy until the damned immigrants show up. This latter perspective of American exceptionalism probably does more harm than good in the long run, both to immigrants and to public health discourse in America. Last I checked, the major public health concerns in America are not SARS or swine flu (even though the media loves to play up the “foreign” origin of these diseases), but heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

With these caveats in mind, if you are looking for a basic introduction to the subject of immigrants and public health discourse, this book is probably a good start. If you want more rigorous historical and racial analysis, go to Shah, Stern, and Kraut.

This book has been really influential in critical race studies and if you are interested at all in critical race theory, it should be right at the top of your list. In Racial Formation, Michael Omi and Howard Winant put forward a new theoretical conception of race called “racial formation” in order to explain how race is sociohistorically constructed and how race continues to structure and permeate all aspects of state and civil society in the United States. Omi and Winant use “racial formation” theory to refute theorists who have until now attempted to understand race and racial dynamics in the U.S. through ethnicity, class, or nation-based paradigms. The authors reject these paradigms by claiming that they ignore the complexities of racial politics in the U.S. and fail to explore the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of race to the fullest extent.

In their formulation of a new theoretical paradigm for understanding race and racial hegemony in the U.S., Omi and Winant are necessarily answering to neoconservatives and neoliberals alike who claim to be “color-blind” and construe any attempts at formulating state policy or political organization along racial lines to be racist. Omi and Winant show how U.S. society is anything but “color-blind,” but instead has used such a claim to continue the oppression and domination of people of color and to maintain the status-quo of white supremacy. Overall, Omi and Winant put forward a powerful new understanding of race and racism in the U.S. which provides a framework on which future coalitions for racial justice could be built on. After all, as the authors say themselves, “to oppose racism one must notice [and understand] race.”

Finally, I have to say that this book has one of the clearest definitions of racism that I have come across. I get frustrated by the prejudice+power+privilege definitions of racism one comes across so often on anti-racist blogs. Omi and Winant explain why racism is irreducible to such simple formulas. Also, I promise I’ll be updating this blog more frequently. I’ve been reading so much, but it’s so hard to find the time or motivation to write unless required for class (you know what I am talking about). But I am getting closer to the comps phase and I think getting into the habit of writing a short summary every time I read a book would probably help me in the long run.

I don’t have much to say about this book except that EVERYONE, not just young women, should read it!  (Although the teen-speak in the book may be a little too much for adults).

This summer, I interned at an international organization that works on promoting human rights and policy change and I cannot even begin to explain how dismayed I felt about all the young interns who felt comfortable saying, “I am not a feminist.” Since when did believing in gender equity go out of fashion? I wish I had read this book earlier so I could have referred it to them. If you are a parent, PLEASE GIVE THIS BOOK TO YOUR DAUGHTERS (and sons, but especially to your daughters).

That being said, the book is not entirely problem-free. First, the language, while I think is targeted to a teen audience, seems insulting to their intelligence. I was a fairly advanced reader as a teenager, and I would certainly have sneered at Valenti’s attempts at being “cool.”

Second, not all the arguments made are nuanced and, again, the way the book is written, what comes across is that if you don’t believe or agree with Valenti’s points of view, then you’re stupid or dumb. That actually somehow reinforces the stereotype that feminists are rigid and one-track minded. I, for one, do not agree that an engagement ring is a form of “dowry,” and I think abortion is a moral issue. One can, however, be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time, but the way the discussion is presented in the book, there is no room for nuances or subtleties. Either you agree with Valenti, or you’re dumb.

These issues, however, should not trump the overall merits of this book. In fact, reading the book should be followed by constructive dialogue. That’s when it will be the most useful.

The Next Big Thing

As the semester winds down,  I like to read light, trashy novels that don’t require an ounce of brainpower. I finished this book in record time (I really wish I could speed read my coursework in the same manner) and needless to say, I did not feel any more enriched having read it. The novel is written from the perspective of Kat Larson who is fat and hates the way the world treats her for it. But no matter how much sympathy Kat Larson tries to whip up for herself, it just doesn’t work. It is hard to feel sympathy for a character who feels so uncomfortable in her own skin and who cares so much for what everyone else thinks of her that a simple shopping expedition to Lane Bryant becomes a huge ordeal. (FYI – I had no clue that Lane Bryant was the “fat girl” store). She also has an “internet boyfriend” who lives in England and who believes that Kat is a size zero when she is, in fact, eighteen. Anyway, Kat somehow finds the guts to audition for a reality TV show about, you guessed it, losing weight, and everything in the end, of course, turns out all hunky dory and she lands a job at MTV (I kid you not) and finds a new boyfriend and some confidence.

My main gripe with this book is the character of Kat Larson. She is completely unrelatable and extremely superficial. Second, the plot was thoroughly lacking in imagination. How innovative to put a fat person on a reality tv show about losing weight!! When I pick up a chick-flick type novel, I am always hoping for a good surprise. This, however, made me scratch my head in wonder that it actually found a publisher willing enough to publish it.

Polish Immigrants and Industrial Chicago: Workers on the South Side, 1880-1922

This has to be one of the most boring books I have ever read. In fact, I can’t even say I read the whole thing – I read the first half and then largely skimmed through the second half. The reasons I found the book so boring are that I am not the least bit interested in Polish immigrants and I didn’t particularly care for all the details concerning labor movements in the latter half of the book.

Pacyga’s book can basically be seen as a kind of response to Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. As the title suggests, Pacyga is largely concerned with Polish immigrants who settled in South Side industrial Chicago and worked in the meatpacking industries and the steel mills. He disagrees that too much disorganization occurred amongst the Polish peasantry as a result of industrial capitalism in Europe and later emigration to America. He hints that while familial disorganization may have occurred due to broken families, reduction of group pressure, loss of marriage traditions, emigration, etc., there was never any loss of individual morality or rise in individualism. In fact, he says many of the “precapitalist” Polish traditions survived immigration and helped form the “base for the Polish immigrant response to industrial Chicago.” He labels the act of Polish building a community based on ethnic lines and precapitalist traditions in urban Chicago by Polish immigrants as an instant of “communalism.” Beyond communalism, however, he argues, Polish immigrants also participated in “extracommunalism,” i.e. making inter-ethnic alliances once they had been somewhat integrated into American life, gained class consciousness, and taken part in the early 20^th century labor movements.

The first half of the book is tolerable and even quite enjoyable at times – it describes the life of immigrant families living in the South Side and their living and working conditions. This half, however, suffers from the lack of any individual voices.

The second half of the book is barely tolerable – it mostly describes the formation of labor unions and their movements in fighting for higher wages, better working conditions, etc. This part should appeal to someone interested in labor history, but I found the detailed play-by-play recounting of it quite boring and useless. Again, you only hear the voices of union leaders and never that of the individual laborer. There is also a section on race riots in Chicago which I largely skimmed through, again because of the detailed accounts and because of the author’s mission to prove that Polish immigrants were largely innocent of any misdeeds in either the labor movement or during the race riots.

I can go on and on critiquing this book, but even writing and thinking about it is giving me a headache. Let’s just say that I would have never picked this book up or even continued skimming through it had it not been assigned for a class. Now, if you’re interested in a partial account (remember, the book only deals with immigrants living in the South Side. There were a bunch of Polish immigrants living in the North and where there was a huge conflict going on about the establishment of churches independent of or dependent on the Catholic church) of Polish immigrants in the U.S., in a partial history of race riots, and a partial and tedious account of the labor movement, pick this book up.