The Foundling: Journey of a Street Child is a story about both tragedy and triumph. It shows how although life for a child might start off hard, cold and present obstacles seemingly insurmountable, good health and happiness can ultimately still be obtained. On a deeper level, it is an intimate look at some of the darkest times in the life of one abandoned and neglected child who turned to the streets for survival, to meet his basic human needs. Unlike most contemporary writings on this subject though, this incredible story not only makes clear the criminal activities and dysfunctional life styles bred in the belly of an urban underworld, it demonstrates how his street smarts and well honed survival skills took one boy, literally, from the park bench to Park Avenue. The Foundling is a fantastic story of how one child's commitment to live, by any means necessary, eventually led him to a very successful and fullfilled work and family life. This qualification can only be told by him since its based on his true life history: as a young boy running from an unfair, insensitive and callous foster care system; and teenager looking for love and acceptance in all the wrong places; to a young man finding true freedom and joy in life beyond his wildest imagination.

Just as American culture has been constructed by people of many ethnicities, roots music in America is multicultural in nature. Native American music resonates from Indigenous traditions of the Great Plains and the American West. Hispanic culture has spawned Border Music styles such as Conjunto and Tejano, while Cajun and Zydeco grew from cultural cross-pollination in the American South. In northern regions, Polish-American musicians popularized Polka, while Irish-American music holds a rich tradition throughout many regions in the East. This unique volume presents influential musical cultures from throughout the multicultural history of American vernacular song. Series blurb: This series presents five volumes on genres of music that have evolved in distinctly regional styles throughout the nation. With volumes authored by leading music scholars, the series traces the growth of Blues, Country, Folk, and Jazz in their many regional variations, as well as Ethnic and Border music traditions throughout America. Each volume presents an accessible analysis of the genre in its many regional forms, examining the musical elements and, when applicable, lyrical subjects as tied to specific cultures throughout the United States. The series features: BLTraditional music placed within regional perspectives BLThe study of music shown to illustrate cultural nuances BLMusical elements explained in accessible language for the lay reader BLGlossaries of important biographical and topical entries related to the genres.

Despite the growing presence of intercultural couples in the United States and worldwide, their stories often go untold. In "Intercultural Couples," Jill Bystydzienski provides a rare and comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional experiences of intercultural couples, drawing mainly upon in-depth interviews with persons living in domestic partnerships--heterosexual and same-sex--representing a broad spectrum of ethnic, racial, religious, socioeconomic, and national backgrounds. In these relationships, each partner brings a different set of cultural experiences that may include gender expectations, ideas about appropriate relations with family members, childrearing, financial matters, and general lifestyle. Sometimes differences may be unrecognized or seen as minimal, yet some can become salient, forming the basis for conflict, enriching diversity, or both.

Bystydzienski's findings show that, despite hurtful incidents from persons outside the couple partnerships, intercultural unions are a source of satisfaction for the partners, and are able to bridge divisions and reduce inequalities between persons of diverse backgrounds, providing a rich portrait of how these couples negotiate their identities as individuals and as couples in relation to the outside world.

Theatre of the Borderlands: Conflict, Violence, and Healing is an enlightening and encompassing study that focuses on how dramatists from the Northern Mexico border territories write about theater. The plays analyzed in this study are representative of the most important Northern Border playwrights whose plays' themes present the US-Mexico Borderlands in a socio-historical and political context. The most important themes observed include topics that engage in discussions of: the indigenous, Border crossings, heroes and folk saints, the city of Tijuana, and violence in the Borderlands, to name a few. These themes have led to the birth of the Teatro del Norte movement, a group of determined playwrights insistent on presenting dramaturgical themes that show the bond between their particular geographies, histories, socio-political and economic situations, thereby giving birth to an original voice and new aesthetic of representation. Dealing with the topics already mentioned, and pairing them with more timely ones like immigration reform, namely, this study can serve as an invaluable resource to many interdisciplinary academic settings, and can grant an eye-opening insight to Border relations through several critical readings.

The Unfinished Politics of Race argues that the past few decades have seen important transformations in the politics of race. Contending that existing accounts have focused narrowly on the mainstream political sphere, this study argues that there is a need to explore the role of race more widely. By exploring the mainstream as well as transitional and alternative spheres of political mobilisation the authors stress the need to link the analysis of both local and national processes in order to make sense of the changing contours of racialised politics. The underlying concern of this study is to outline both a theoretical frame for an analysis of racial politics, and detailed empirical accounts of different arenas of political mobilisation. By exploring the unfinished politics of race, this study provides a timely reminder that the position of racial and ethnic minorities in political institutions remains deeply contested.

This Land is My Land is a historical fictional story about the life and adventures of the soldiers, artisans, and clergy under the leadership of Hidalgo Don Hernando De Soto beginning in the year of 1538 and coming to a tiring end in 1542.The theme illustrates the difficulty of men and women in the first exploration of La Florida and its damaging effects to new lands and the indigenous people who had founded the land many years earlier. It elaborates how exploration is irresistible to human beings and will always have its good and bad outcomes. They begin with about seven hundred and fifty men and women of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, mostly Portuguese and Spaniard. The route of exploration went through Cuba, 10 states and Mexico ending with about two hundred and twenty-six survivors. The protagonist is the gold and land-seeking explorer and Adelantado Don Hernando De Soto searching for new lands and riches to aid in his own as well as his countries profits. After his death, Luis de Moscoso follows him as the leader to get the remaining explorers safely to the city of Mexico. It does not demonstrate a one sided wrongdoing but the unethical and unfair actions that come about when differently cultivated humans meet. It is not a heartwarming story of great adventures, which leads to a Thanksgiving.It describes the four-year march across the interior of today's southeastern United States based on information the author gathered from translations of four of the original notes and writing of the original company.

This book is a contribution to the growing body of work on identity studies. It encompasses the analysis of common themes found in many Malaysian novels, i.e. identity and the self. These themes are examined through postcolonial and psychoanalytical lenses. The book provides an illustration of the intricacies that go into the analysis of identity and sense of self, as well as the manner in which textual studies and analysis is conceptualized and carried out. It is hoped that this book will provide Language Studies students with guidance on the manner in which textual analysis could be approached.

Through a unique combination of narrative history and primary documents, this book provides an engrossing biography of Sequoyah, the creator of the Cherokee writing system, and clearly documents the importance of written language in the preservation of culture. Sequoyah's creation of an easy-to-learn syllabary for the Cherokee nation enabled far more than the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper of the Cherokee Nation, and the ability for Native Americans to communicate far more effectively than word of mouth can allow. In many ways, the effects of Sequoyah's syllabary demonstrate the critical role of written language in cultural preservation and persistence. Sequoyah and the Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet is a readable study of Sequoyah's life that also discusses Cherokee culture as well as the historical and current usage and impact of the Cherokee syllabary he created. While the emphasis of the work is on Sequoyah's adult life between 1800 and 1840, enough pre- and post-history information is provided to allow any reader to fully grasp the contextual significance of his accomplishments. The book includes a biography section of key individuals and contains a collection of primary documents that helps illustrate the usage of Sequoyah's syllabary. A page from the Cherokee Phoenix showing the use of written Cherokee language in Sequoyah's syllabary A Cherokee syllabary chart A bibliography of sources that describes the focus of each entry and identifies its benefit and intended audience Photographs of road signs in Cherokee, NC written in English and in the Cherokee syllabary

Julie J. Park examines how losing racial diversity in a university affects the everyday lives of its students. She uses a student organization, the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) at "California University," as a case study to show how reductions in racial diversity impact the ability of students to sustain multiethnic communities. The story documents IVCF's evolution from a predominantly white group that rarely addressed race to one of the most racially diverse campus fellowships at the university. However, its ability to maintain its multiethnic membership was severely hampered by the drop in black enrollment at California University following the passage of Proposition 209, a statewide affirmative action ban. Park demonstrates how the friendships that students have-or do not have-across racial lines are not just a matter of personal preference or choice; they take place in the contexts that are inevitably shaped by the demographic conditions of the university. She contends that a strong organizational commitment to diversity, while essential, cannot sustain a racially diverse student subculture. Her work makes a critical contribution to our understanding of race and inequality in collegiate life and is a valuable resource for educators and researchers interested in the influence of racial politics on students' lives.

Contributions by Tim Armstrong, Edward A. Chappell, W. Ralph Eubanks, Amy A. Foley, Michael Gorra, Sherita L. Johnson, Andrew B. Leiter, John T. Matthews, Julie Beth Napolin, Erin Penner, Stephanie Rountree, Julia Stern, Jay Watson, and Randall Wilhelm In 1930, the same year he moved into Rowan Oak, a slave-built former plantation home in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi, William Faulkner published his first work of fiction that gave serious attention to the experience and perspective of an enslaved individual. For the next two decades, Faulkner repeatedly returned to the theme of slavery and to the figures of enslaved people in his fiction, probing the racial, economic, and political contours of his region, nation, and hemisphere in work such as The Sound and the Fury; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; and Go Down, Moses. Faulkner and Slavery is the first collection to address the myriad legacies of African chattel slavery in the writings and personal history of one of the twentieth century's most incisive authors on US slavery and the long ordeal of race in the Americas. Contributors to the volume examine the constitutive links among slavery, capitalism, and modernity across Faulkner's oeuvre. They study how the history of slavery at the University of Mississippi informs writings like Absalom, Absalom! and trace how slavery's topologies of the rectilinear grid or square run up against the more reparative geography of the oval in Faulkner's narratives. Contributors explore how the legacies of slavery literally sound and resound across centuries of history, and across multiple novels and stories in Faulkner's fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, and they reveal how the author's remodeling work on his own residence brought him into an uncomfortable engagement with the spatial and architectural legacies of chattel slavery in north Mississippi. Faulkner and Slavery offers a timely intervention not only in the critical study of the writer's work but in ongoing national and global conversations about the afterlives of slavery and the necessary work of antiracism.

The last half century witnessed a dramatic change in the geographic, ethnographic, and socioeconomic structure of Asian American communities. While traditional enclaves were strengthened by waves of recent immigrants, native-born Asian Americans also created new urban and suburban areas.

Asian America is the first comprehensive look at post-1960s Asian American communities in the United States and Canada. From Chinese Americans in Chicagoland to Vietnamese Americans in Orange County, this multi-disciplinary collection spans a wide comparative and panoramic scope. Contributors from an array of academic fields focus on global views of Asian American communities as well as on territorial and cultural boundaries.

Presenting groundbreaking perspectives, Asian America revises worn assumptions and examines current challenges Asian American communities face in the twenty-first century.

Jerrilyn McGregory explores sacred music and spiritual activism in a little-known region of the South, the Wiregrass Country of Georgia, Alabama, and North Florida. She examines African American sacred music outside of Sunday church-related activities, showing that singing conventions and anniversary programs fortify spiritual as well as social needs. In this region African Americans maintain a social world of their own creation. Their cultural performances embrace some of the most pervasive forms of African American sacred music--spirituals, common meter, Sacred Harp, shape-note, traditional, and contemporary gospel. Moreover, the contexts in which they sing include present-day observations such as the Twentieth of May (Emancipation Day), Burial League Turnouts, and Fifth Sunday.

Rather than tracing the evolution of African American sacred music, this ethnographic study focuses on contemporary cultural performances, almost all by women, which embrace all forms. These women promote a female-centered theology to ensure the survival of their communities and personal networks. They function in leadership roles that withstand the test of time. Their spiritual activism presents itself as a way of life.

In Wiregrass Country, "You don't have to sing like an angel" is a frequently expressed sentiment. To these women, "good" music is God's music regardless of the manner delivered. Therefore, "Downhome Gospel" presents gospel music as being more than a transcendent sound. It is local spiritual activism that is writ large. Gospel means joy, hope, expectation, and the good news that makes the soul glad.

Winner, 2022 Nancy Baym Book Award, given by the Association of Internet Researchers Traces the longstanding relationship between technology and Black feminist thought Black women are at the forefront of some of this century's most important discussions about technology: trolling, online harassment, algorithmic bias, and influencer culture. But, Catherine Knight Steele argues that Black women's relationship to technology began long before the advent of Twitter or Instagram. To truly "listen to Black women," Steele points to the history of Black feminist technoculture in the United States and its ability to decenter white supremacy and patriarchy in a conversation about the future of technology. Using the virtual beauty shop as a metaphor, Digital Black Feminism walks readers through the technical skill, communicative expertise, and entrepreneurial acumen of Black women's labor-born of survival strategies and economic necessity-both on and offline. Positioning Black women at the center of our discourse about the past, present, and future of technology, Steele offers a through-line from the writing of early twentieth-century Black women to the bloggers and social media mavens of the twenty-first century. She makes connections among the letters, news articles, and essays of Black feminist writers of the past and a digital archive of blog posts, tweets, and Instagram stories of some of the most well-known Black feminist writers of our time. Linking narratives and existing literature about Black women's technology use in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century, Digital Black Feminism traverses the bounds between historical and archival analysis and empirical internet studies, forcing a reconciliation between fields and methods that are not always in conversation. As the work of Black feminist writers now reaches its widest audience online, Steele offers both hopefulness and caution on the implications of Black feminism becoming a digital product.

Winner 2010 Outstanding Academic Title Choice

Winner 2010 EBSCOhost / Research Society for American Periodicals Book Prize

Honorable Mention 2010 Thomas J. Lyon Book Award, Western Literature Association

In January of 1861, on the eve of both the Civil War and the rebirth of the African Methodist Episcopal Church's "Christian Recorder," John Mifflin Brown wrote to the paper praising its editor Elisha Weaver: "It takes our Western boys to lead off. I am
proud of your paper."

Weaver's story, though, like many of the contributions of early black literature outside of the urban Northeast, has almost vanished. "Unexpected Places: Relocating Nineteenth-Century African American Literature" recovers the work of early African American authors and editors such as Weaver who have been left off maps drawn by historians and literary critics. Individual chapters restore to consideration black literary locations in antebellum St. Louis, antebellum Indiana, Reconstruction-era San Francisco, and several sites tied to the Philadelphia-based Recorder during and after the Civil War.

In conversation with both archival sources and contemporary scholarship, "Unexpected Places" calls for a large-scale rethinking of the nineteenth-century African American literary landscape. In addition to revisiting such better-known writers as William Wells Brown, Maria Stewart, and Hannah Crafts, "Unexpected Places" offers the first critical considerations of important figures including William Jay Greenly, Jennie Carter, Polly Wash, and Lizzie Hart. The book's discussion of physical locations leads naturally to careful study of how region is tied to genre, authorship, publication circumstances, the black press, domestic and nascent black nationalist ideologies, and black mobility in the nineteenth century.

The Cultural Revolution in China generated a cascade of commentaries and interpretations on the development and meaning of the upheaval. Many students and researchers have found it difficult to locate and identify literature on the period. This bibliography, first published in 1976, corrects this situation. It lists all books, monographs and journal articles in English on the Cultural Revolution, each annotated to show its relevance - a vital reference source.

The book tries to answer the questions: Who are the Kelabits? Why are they called Kelabits? Where do they live? When did they come to live there? What were their problems? What made them what they are today? What must they do inorder to advance forward?