American Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from 1945 to the present.
- Charts the rich multiplicity of American identities through the different lenses of race, class, and gender, and shaped by common historical social processes such as migration, families, work, and war.
- Includes editorial introductions for the volume and for each reading, and study questions for each selection.
- Enables students to engage in the history-making process while developing the skills crucial to interpreting rich and enduring cultural texts.
- Accompanied by an instructor's guide containing reading, viewing, and listening exercises, interview questions, bibliographies, time-lines, and sample excerpts of students' family histories for course use.
Table of Contents:
Alternative Contents by Genre x
Preface: How to Use This Book xiii
Acknowledgments xiv
Introduction 1
PART I IDENTITY, FAMILY, AND MEMORY 6
Understanding Identity
1 Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People? 8
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey
American Families in Historical Perspective
2 What We Really Miss About the 1950s 17
Stephanie Coontz
Memory and Community
3 Generational Memory in an American Town 29
John Bodnar
4 Growing Up Asian in America 39
Kesaya E. Noda
PART II WORLD WAR II AND THE POSTWAR ERA 1940–1960 46
World War II and American Families
5 War Babies 48
Maria Fleming Tymoczko
6 From Citizen 13660 56
Mine´ Okubo
The Cold War and Domestic Politics
7 Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth 65
Elaine Tyler May
8 The Problem That Has No Name 71
Betty Friedan
9 The Civil Rights Revolution, 1945–1960 78
William H. Chafe
10 From Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life 84
Alice Childress
Family Migrations, Urban and Suburban
11 Songs of the Chicago Blues 90
12 Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage 93
Jack Agüeros
13 From Goodbye, Columbus 103
Philip Roth
PART III WAR AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, 1960–1975 112
The Civil Rights Movement
14 Letter from Birmingham City Jail 114
Martin Luther King, Jr.
15 Message to the Grass Roots 119
Malcolm X
16 Songs of the Civil Rights Movement 126
Student Activism
17 Port Huron Statement 130
Students for a Democratic Society
18 The Port Huron Statement at 40 134
Tom Hayden and Richard Flacks
The Vietnam War
19 From Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam 138
Christian G. Appy
20 From Born on the Fourth of July 143
Ron Kovic
21 From Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans 150
Richard J. Ford III
Black and Puerto Rican Power
22 Black Power: Its Need and Substance 158
Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton
23 ‘‘Respect’’ 166
Aretha Franklin
24 ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ 168
James Brown
25 13-Point Program and Platform 170
Young Lords Party
Women’s Lives, Women’s Rights
26 Sources of the Second Wave: The Rebirth of Feminism 174
Sara M. Evans
27 NOW Bill of Rights 185
National Organization for Women
28 The Liberation of Black Women 187
Pauli Murray
29 Jessie Lopez De La Cruz: The Battle for Farmworkers’ Rights 192
Ellen Cantarow
The American Indian Movement
30 This Country Was a Lot Better Off When the Indians Were Running It 203
Vine Deloria, Jr.
The Occupation of Alcatraz Island 208
Indians of All Tribes
The Gay Liberation Movement
31 Gay Liberation 212
John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman
32 The Fighting Irishman 218
A. Damien Martin
33 The Drag Queen 226
Rey ‘‘Sylvia Lee’’ Rivera
The New American Right
34 From Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right 233
Lisa McGirr
PART IV A POSTINDUSTRIAL AND GLOBAL SOCIETY, 1975–2000 240
Deindustrializing America
35 From The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America 242
Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone
36 From ‘‘It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive’’: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen 249
Eric Alterman
37 A Musical Representation of Work in Postindustrial America 254
38 Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000) 264
Gregory Mantsios
Marriage and Family: Modern and Postmodern
39 From Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood 272
Kristin Luker
40 The Making and Unmaking of Modern Families 281
Judith Stacey
Multicultural America
41 From Jasmine 290
Bharati Mukherjee
42 Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural 300
Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn
43 From The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems 305
Sherman Alexie
The United States as Borderlands
44 Through a Glass Darkly: Toward the Twenty-first Century 309
Ronald Takaki
45 ‘‘To live in the Borderlands means you’’ 316
Gloria Anzaldúa
46 From No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 318
Naomi Klein
PART V THE FUTURE OF US ALL? 326
47 Brave New World: Gray Boys, Funky Aztecs, and Honorary Homegirls 328
Lynell George
48 From The Future of Us All 335
Roger Sanjek
49 The Society That Unions Can Build 348
David Reynolds
Text and Illustration Credits 359
Index 364
