"Strongly recommended for undergraduate and graduate libraries; useful in theater, American history, and ethnic studies." Choice

Fearing an imminent Nazi invasion, the British government interned 28,000 men and women of enemy nationality living in Britain in the spring of 1940. Most were Jewish refugees who, having fled Nazi persecution, were appalled to find themselves imprisoned as potential Nazi spies. Using oral histories, unpublished letters and memoirs, artifacts and newspapers from the camps, and government documents, " We Built Up Our Lives" tells the compelling story of sixty-three of these internees. It is a seldom-told part of the history of World War II and the Holocaust and a classic tale of human courage and resilience.

"We Built Up Our Lives" describes the survival mechanisms relied upon by the Jewish refugees. Although the internees, imprisoned in Britain, the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia, were adequately housed and fed and rarely mistreated, they were cut off from family, friends, school, and work--everything that had given meaning to their lives. Resisting boredom, anger, and despair, the internees made the best of a bad situation by creating education, culture, and community within the camps. Before and after as well as during the internment--in Nazi Germany and in Britain--educational resources and social networks were essential to the refugees' efforts to build up their lives. Equally important were personal qualities of courage, ingenuity, assertiveness, and resilience.

Dedicated to a better understanding of the diversity of children being taught in American public schools, this book includes the experiences of groups (e.g. Haitians, Dominicans, Indians, and Vietnamese) not often represented even in the multicultural education literature. It also includes the experiences of often marginalized groups such as lesbians and gays, Appalachians, and white working class males.

"... Beyond Black and White opens a discussion of diversity that goes beyond the notion that white or black can be looked at as any kind of homogeneous groupings. While numerous studies focus on the ways in which schools privilege some groups of children and marginalize others, such work tends to construe differences along a narrowly constructed black-white dichotomy. Beyond Black and White forces the reader to abandon this construction". -- Nelson C. Vincent, University of Cincinnati

The book encourages the centering of voices often not heard, even in volumes whose aim it is to center historically silenced voices. The contributors probe the experiences of "Familiar Minorities", such as African Americans, native Americans, and Mexican Americans, as well as those among "Newcomers", such as Haitians, Dominicans, Indians, Salvadorians, and Vietnamese. In the final section, "Other Minorities" are encountered -- groups struggling for recognition such as lesbians and gays, Appalachians, and white working class males. This interdisciplinary volume stands as vivid testimony to the myriad of voices in today's schools.