Italian American: The Racializing of an Ethnic Identity
A study of how Italian American ethnic identity became racialized in law and culture. It treats identity not as fixed essence but as something shaped by history and power.
Work Information
Ethnicity takes on the form of race through law and culture.
David A. J. Richards rereads Italian American history at the intersection of race, law, and culture. The book includes a legal and intellectual argument about assimilation and difference.
Book Information
- Publisher
- NYU Press
- Published
- 1999-07-01
- Pages
- 288 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.93 x 2.49 x 23.47 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9780814775202
- ISBN-10
- 0814775209
- Price
- 24359 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/History/Americas/United States/20th Century
When southern Italians began emigrating to the U.S. in large numbers in the 1870s-part of the "new immigration" from southern and eastern rather than northern Europe-they were seen as racially inferior, what David A. J. Richards terms "nonvisibly" black. The first study of its kind, Italian American explores the acculturation process of Italian immigrants in terms of then-current patterns of European and American racism. Delving into the political and legal context of flawed liberal nationalism both in Italy (the Risorgimento) and the United States (Reconstruction Amendments), Richards examines why Italian Americans were so reluctant to influence depictions of themselves and their own collective identity. He argues that American racism could not have had the durability or political power it has had either in the popular understanding or in the corruption of constitutional ideals unless many new immigrants, themselves often regarded as racially inferior, had been drawn into accepting and supporting many of the terms of American racism. With its unprecedented focus on Italian American identity and an interdisciplinary approach to comparative culture and law, this timely study sheds important light on the history and contemporary importance of identity and multicultural politics in American political and constitutional debate.
Author of numerous books including Conscience and the Constitution: History, Theory, and Law of the Reconstruction Amendments and Women, Gays, and the Constitution: The Grounds of Feminism and Gay Rights in Culture and Law, David A. J. Richards is Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at New York University.