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Chronicling the rise of Los Angeles through shifting ideas of race and ethnicity, William Deverell offers a unique perspective on how the city grew and changed Whitewashed Adobe considers six different developments in the history of the city--including the cementing of the Los Angeles River, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924, and the evolution of America's largest brickyard in the 1920s. In an absorbing narrative supported by a number of previously unpublished period photographs, Deverell shows how a city that was once part of Mexico itself came of age through appropriating--and even obliterating--the region's connections to Mexican places and people.
Deverell portrays Los Angeles during the 1850s as a city seething with racial enmity due to the recent war with Mexico. He explains how, within a generation, the city's business interests, looking for a commercially viable way to establish urban identity, borrowed Mexican cultural traditions and put on a carnival called La Fiesta de Los Angeles. He analyzes the subtle ways in which ethnicity came to bear on efforts to corral the unpredictable Los Angeles River and shows how the resident Mexican population was put to work fashioning the modern metropolis. He discusses how Los Angeles responded to the nation's last major outbreak of bubonic plague and concludes by considering the Mission Play, a famed drama tied to regional assumptions about history, progress, and ethnicity. Taking all of these elements into consideration, Whitewashed Adobe uncovers an urban identity--and the power structure that fostered it--with far-reaching implications for contemporary Los Angeles..
Price: $15.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

”Superb.”
Steven Bender, author of Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law, and the American Imagination

“A crisply-written manuscript on a timely and important subject.”
—Kevin Johnson, author of Opening the Floodgates:Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws

The Middle Eastern question lies at the heart of the most pressing issues of our time: the war in Iraq and on terrorism, the growing tension between preservation of our national security and protection of our civil rights, and the debate over immigration, assimilation, and our national identity. Yet paradoxically, little attention is focused on our domestic Middle Eastern population and its place in American society. Unlike many other racial minorities in our country, Middle Eastern Americans have faced rising, rather than diminishing, degrees of discrimination over time; a fact highlighted by recent targeted immigration policies, racial profiling, a war on terrorism with a decided racialist bent, and growing rates of job discrimination and hate crime. Oddly enough, however, Middle Eastern Americans are not even considered a minority in official government data. Instead, they are deemed white by law.

In Whitewashed, John Tehranian combines his own personal experiences as an Iranian American with an expert’s analysis of current events, legal trends, and critical theory to analyze this bizarre Catch-22 of Middle Eastern racial classification. He explains how American constructions of Middle Eastern racial identity have changed over the last two centuries, paying particular attention to the shift in perceptions of the Middle Easterner from friendly foreigner to enemy alien, a trend accelerated by the tragic events of September 11. Focusing on the contemporary immigration debate, the war on terrorism, media portrayals of Middle Easterners, and the processes of creating racial stereotypes, Tehranian argues that, despite its many successes, the modern civil rights movement has not done enough to protect the liberties of Middle Eastern Americans.

By following how concepts of whiteness have transformed over time, Whitewashed forces readers to rethink and question some of their most deeply held assumptions about race in American society.

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Price: $35.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A promising national swimmer, Maureen McKenna, has to stop the sport she loves on medical grounds. Distraught, she kicks back at the world that has betrayed her. If the world had let her down then she was determined to beat it into submission and win out on her own terms. A combination of commercial acumen and problem drinking saw this business high flier soar and crash repeatedly. The cycle couldn't continue and Maureen became an alcoholic and involved in an abusive relationship that lasted 12 years. The world had won, again. Without hope, aged 33, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous as a last resort and met a young man who told her about a surer kind of hope, one founded on faith. She listened but was still determined to do away with what she considered was her worthless life. Just as she was about to throw herself in front of traffic on a busy road, she felt a hand on her shoulder, physically restraining her from stepping off of the curb. When she looked around, there was no one there. She phoned the young man she had recently met and became a Christian that day. Maureen and Hugh (for that was the young man's name) later married and worked full time with homeless people, prostitutes and addicts in the streets of Glasgow. After 12 years they decided that the people that they met needed more than food and clothes, they needed a saviour to break the cycle of deprivation. In 1998 they set up Open Door Trust Glasgow. Read about this amazing work in the urban underclass, a work that will challenge your preconceptions and move your heart with compassion. Share Maureen and Hugh's vision of service to making a change in the lives of those whom the world passes by..
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