American Identities

American Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from 1945 to the present.

• Charts the rich multiplicity of American identities through the different lenses of race, class, and gender, and shaped by common historical social processes such as migration, families, work, and war.
• Includes editorial introductions for the volume and for each reading, and study questions for each selection.
• Enables students to engage in the history-making process while developing the skills crucial to interpreting rich and enduring cultural texts.
• Accompanied by an instructor's guide containing reading, viewing, and listening exercises, interview questions, bibliographies, time-lines, and sample excerpts of students' family histories for course use.

Alternative Contents by Genre x

Preface: How to Use This Book xiii

Acknowledgments xiv

Introduction 1

PART I IDENTITY, FAMILY, AND MEMORY 6

Understanding Identity

1 Identities and Social Locations: Who Am I? Who Are My People? 8
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey

American Families in Historical Perspective

2 What We Really Miss About the 1950s 17
Stephanie Coontz

Memory and Community

3 Generational Memory in an American Town 29
John Bodnar

4 Growing Up Asian in America 39
Kesaya E. Noda

PART II WORLD WAR II AND THE POSTWAR ERA 1940–1960 46

World War II and American Families

5 War Babies 48
Maria Fleming Tymoczko

6 From Citizen 13660 56
Mine´ Okubo

The Cold War and Domestic Politics

7 Containment at Home: Cold War, Warm Hearth 65
Elaine Tyler May

8 The Problem That Has No Name 71
Betty Friedan

9 The Civil Rights Revolution, 1945–1960 78
William H. Chafe

10 From Like One of the Family: Conversations from a Domestic’s Life 84
Alice Childress

Family Migrations, Urban and Suburban

11 Songs of the Chicago Blues 90

12 Halfway to Dick and Jane: A Puerto Rican Pilgrimage 93
Jack Agüeros

13 From Goodbye, Columbus 103
Philip Roth

PART III WAR AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, 1960–1975 112

The Civil Rights Movement

14 Letter from Birmingham City Jail 114
Martin Luther King, Jr.

15 Message to the Grass Roots 119
Malcolm X

16 Songs of the Civil Rights Movement 126

Student Activism

17 Port Huron Statement 130

Students for a Democratic Society

18 The Port Huron Statement at 40 134
Tom Hayden and Richard Flacks

The Vietnam War

19 From Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam 138
Christian G. Appy

20 From Born on the Fourth of July 143
Ron Kovic

21 From Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans 150
Richard J. Ford III

Black and Puerto Rican Power

22 Black Power: Its Need and Substance 158
Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton

23 ‘‘Respect’’ 166
Aretha Franklin

24 ‘‘Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)’’ 168
James Brown

25 13-Point Program and Platform 170
Young Lords Party

Women’s Lives, Women’s Rights

26 Sources of the Second Wave: The Rebirth of Feminism 174
Sara M. Evans

27 NOW Bill of Rights 185
National Organization for Women

28 The Liberation of Black Women 187
Pauli Murray

29 Jessie Lopez De La Cruz: The Battle for Farmworkers’ Rights 192
Ellen Cantarow

The American Indian Movement

30 This Country Was a Lot Better Off When the Indians Were Running It 203
Vine Deloria, Jr.

The Occupation of Alcatraz Island 208
Indians of All Tribes

The Gay Liberation Movement

31 Gay Liberation 212
John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman

32 The Fighting Irishman 218
A. Damien Martin

33 The Drag Queen 226
Rey ‘‘Sylvia Lee’’ Rivera

The New American Right

34 From Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right 233
Lisa McGirr

PART IV A POSTINDUSTRIAL AND GLOBAL SOCIETY, 1975–2000 240

Deindustrializing America

35 From The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America 242
Bennett Harrison and Barry Bluestone

36 From ‘‘It Ain’t No Sin To Be Glad You’re Alive’’: The Promise of Bruce Springsteen 249
Eric Alterman

37 A Musical Representation of Work in Postindustrial America 254

38 Class in America: Myths and Realities (2000) 264
Gregory Mantsios

Marriage and Family: Modern and Postmodern

39 From Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood 272
Kristin Luker

40 The Making and Unmaking of Modern Families 281
Judith Stacey

Multicultural America

41 From Jasmine 290
Bharati Mukherjee

42 Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural 300
Claudine Chiawei O’Hearn

43 From The Business of Fancydancing: Stories and Poems 305
Sherman Alexie

The United States as Borderlands

44 Through a Glass Darkly: Toward the Twenty-first Century 309
Ronald Takaki

45 ‘‘To live in the Borderlands means you’’ 316
Gloria Anzaldúa

46 From No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies 318
Naomi Klein

PART V THE FUTURE OF US ALL? 326

47 Brave New World: Gray Boys, Funky Aztecs, and Honorary Homegirls 328
Lynell George

48 From The Future of Us All 335
Roger Sanjek

49 The Society That Unions Can Build 348
David Reynolds

Text and Illustration Credits 359

Index 364

“This unique collection has what students (and their teachers) will find absorbing, provocative, and useful in that perennial quest to locate ourselves in a world we may not have made but that we can understand and change.” Paul Lauter, Trinity College

Lois P. Rudnick is Professor of English and American Studies and Director of the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Judith E. Smith is Professor of American Studies and Director, Graduate Program in American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Rachel Lee Rubin is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

American Identities is a dazzling array of primary documents and critical essays culled from American history, literature, memoir, and popular culture that explore major currents and trends in American history from World War II to the present. The textbook charts the rich multiplicity of American identities as refracted through the different lenses of race, class, and gender, and shaped by common historical social processes such as migration, families, work, and war. Rather than simply teaching history, American Identities actively engages students in the history-making process while developing the skills crucial to interpreting meaningful and enduring cultural texts.

Substantial editorial matter and the accompanying instructor's guide provide resources for classroom use and for student projects, including:

• Headnotes and study guide questions for each reading
• Exercises for individual and group reading and viewing
• Timelines
• Interview questions
• Bibliographies to guide students into becoming readers of American culture and historians of their families.