Reviews for Natives and Strangers A Multicultural History of Americans

The average rating for Natives and Strangers A Multicultural History of Americans based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-01-17 00:00:00 Trent Trittipo Trittipo It's definitely not an easy task to condense "minority group experiences," as Dinnerstein, Nichols, and Reimers put it, into a comprehensive, catch-all book that looks at immigration trends, social histories, and ethnic groups in the United States. But I still feel that the authors could have made this book seem less like a running laundry list of statistics and dry facts at times and more like a breathing, living narrative. That said, they do an okay job for trying to cover the entire body of American history while emphasizing the various minority groups and examining global trends and events. They emphasize the xenophobia, racism, and violence that erupted throughout American history against various minority groups that included white ethnic immigrants. One thing I liked was the recycled nativist rhetoric, which came up again and again, that challenged and questioned the unassimilability or American-ness of targeted groups. I had a few gripes with this book, though. For one, some parts of it seemed carelessly edited. Vincent Chin was killed in 1992? Come on. That's an entire decade off, and a huge problem for students trying to situate Chin's murder in the 1980s when anti-Japanese sentiment was running high. There were other errors like this, and for a book that's well into its fifth edition, I think these kinds of noticeable/important errors and typos were inexcusable. Furthermore, the mention of Malcolm X was totally cursory! He was mentioned in passing with Elijah Muhammed in a note about the rise of the Nation of Islam in the 1960s. The least Dinnerstein et al. could have done was to make the connection between Malcolm's calls for black nationalism to the rise of the Black Panther Party! The point of history is to be making these connections, and I felt this book (at times) became more a list of facts and events than drawing useful connections. For a figure who has been so misrepresented already, I didn't feel like this book did him right. Oh, and in the afterword, the way the authors conclude the book on a bootstrappy tone ("Nevertheless, most Americans believe that good people, given opportunities, will pick themselves up by their bootsraps, and move on. [...] All that we can be certain of is that ethnicity by itself is no longer an impediment.") seems contrived and overly optimistic given the various instantiations of discrimination and violence that minority groups in America have, and continue to, face. I don't know. Maybe I'm being cynical.

Review # 2 was written on 2018-02-02 00:00:00 Laura Rebbe This book is one of the most comprehensive, factual, easy to digest volumes on ethnic history that emphasizes the plight of Native Indians, African Americans and all immigrants ever emigrating to America. I learned so much from this small volume packed with just enough data to give you in depth history in Ethnic America. While I do not hold a personal opinion towards the authors and their opinions, I do hold high regard for the data they present to the reader.