"Mary Waters' admirable study of Americans' ethnic choices produces
a rich social-scientific yield. Its theoretical interest derives
from the American irony that while ethnicity is 'supposed to be'
ascribed, many Americans are active in choosing and making their
ethnic memberships and identities. The monograph is simultaneously
objective and attentive to subjective meaning, simultaneously
quantitative and qualitative, and simultaneously sociological and
psychological. Her research problems are well-conceived, and her
findings important and well-documented. As ethnicity and race
continue in their high salience in American society and politics,
sound social-scientific studies like this one are all the more
valuable."--Neil Smelser, co-editor of "The Social Importance of
Self-Esteem
"One of the most sensible and elegant books about ethnicity in
the United States that has ever been my great pleasure to
read."--Andrew M. Greeley, University of Chicago
"Skilled in both demographic and interviewing methods, Mary
Waters makes ethnicity in contemporary America come alive. We learn
how people construct their identities, and why. This is
sociological research at its very best, and will be of interest to
policy makers and educated Americans as well as to students and
scholars in several disciplines."--Theda Skocpol, Harvard
University
"Perhaps the most intriguing question in the study of the 'old
(European) immigration" is how the 4th, 5th and later generations
who are the offspring of several intermarriages are choosing their
ethnic identities from the several available to them. Professor
Waters' clever mix of quantitative and qualitative research has
produced some thoughtful and eminentlysensible answers to that
question, making her book required reading for students of
ethnicity. Her work should also interest general readers concerned
with their or their children's ethnic identity--or just curious
about this yet little known variety of American
pluralism."--Herbert J. Gans, Columbia University
"Waters has produced a work with broad theoretical implications.
The title . . . may be regarded as one of the first serious
attempts to understand the dynamics of postmodern societies. Waters
shows that ethnicity becomes transformed from as ascriptive into an
achieved status, a voluntary construction of individual identity
and group solidarity. Waters also shows that, in America at least,
this increased flexibility is unavailable to racial
minorities."--Jeffrey C. Alexander, University of California, Los
Angeles
"A theoretically informed and theoretically driven fine-grained
analysis pooling ideas and issues in both ethnography and
demography."--Stanley Lieberson, Harvard University
"Thanks to "Ethnic Options we have a much better understanding
of the social and cultural significance of responses to the
ancestry question on the 1980 census. By combining in-depth
interviews with analysis of census data, Mary Waters puts flesh on
the demographic bare bones. Her findings suggest that ethnicity is
becoming less an ascribed trait, fixed at birth, than an 'option'
that depends on circumstance, whim, and increasingly, the ethnicity
of one's spouse."--Stephen Steinberg, author of "The Ethnic
Myth
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