ETHNIC STUDIES REVIEW the Journal of the National Association for Ethnic Studies
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ETHNIC STUDIES REVIEW The Journal of the National Association for Ethnic Studies Volume 19, Numbers 2 & 3 June/October 1996 Issue Editor: Fay the Thrner Table of Contents Editor's Note Miguel A. Carranza............................................................................. ......... i-ii Articles Afrocentrism and the Peopling of the Americas Gabriel Haslip-Viera ........................................................... ..... ........ 129-140 Affect, Identity, and Ethnicity: Towards a Social-Psychological Mode of Ethnic Attainment Jack David Eller. ..................... ...................................................... ......141-154 The African-American Intellectual of the 1920s: Some Sociological Implications of the Harlem Renaissance Robert L. Perry and Melvin T. Peters .............................. ........ ....... ....155-172 Using African American Perspectives to Promote a More Inclusive Understanding of Human Communication Theory Jim Schnell. ........................................................................................173-179 Perspectivist Chicano Studies, 1970-1985 Michael Soldatenko .... ........................................................................1 81-208 Like Sustenance for the Masses: Genre Resistance, Cultural Identity, and the Achievement of Like Water for Chocolate Ellen Puccinelli ...................................................................................209-224 Book Reviews Verad Amit-Talai and Caroline Knowles, eds. , Re-Situating Identities: The Politics of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture, reviewed by David Covin................................................................................................. 225 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large, Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, reviewed by Hope J. Schau.............................. ................226 Mary B. Davis, ed., Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia, reviewed by David M. Gradwohl. ......... .........................228 Eugene Eoyang, Coat of Many Colors: Reflections on Diversity by a Minority of One, reviewed by Russell Endo......................................... 230 Fred L. Gardaphe, Italian Signs, American Streets: The Evolution of Italian American Narrative, reviewed by Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum........................... ..................................................231 Herman Gray, Watching Race: Te levision and the Struggle for "Blackness, " reviewed by Clarence Spigner............................. ............233 Mary Carol Hopkins, Braving a New World: Cambodian (Khmer) Refugees in an American City, reviewed by CorSwang Ngin.............. .................................. ...........................................234 Paul Kivel, Uprooting Racisn: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, reviewed by Sandra J. Holstein...................................... 235 Thomas J. LaBelle and Christopher R. Ward, Ethnic Studies and Multiculturalism, reviewed by Otis L. Scott............................... .........23 7 David R. Maciel and Isidro D. Ortiz, eds. , Chicana/Chicanos at the Crossroads: Social, Economic, and Polticial Change, reviewed by Jorge L. Chinea..... .... .... .... ..... ............................. ....................238 Chon Noriega and Ana M. Lopez, eds., The Ethnic Eye: Latino Media Arts, reviwed by Gabriel Haslip-Viera ................................... 240 Tey Diana Rebolledo, Women Singing in the Snow: A Cultural Analysis of Chicana Literature, reviewed by May thee Rojas.............................................................................................. 241 Flore Zephir, Haitian Immigrants in Black American: A Sociological and Sociolinguistic Portrait, reviewed by Aloma M. Mendoza................... 243 Editor's Note This issue of the journal includes articles that focus on a variety of topics in the discipline of Ethnic Studies. In the first article Gabriel Haslip-Viera challenges scholars to reassess the theory of human developmer.t in the Western Hemisphere. Haslip-Viera presents a compelling argument that focuses on the basic claims and methods used by Afrocentrists to support their theory. His concluding section discusses the potential consequences of this theory on future relations among African Americans, Native Americans and Latino Americans. Jack David Eller investigates the issue of ethnicity as an affective relationship. He argues that affect is a critical element in ethnicity but that current theory of ethnic affect has been counterproductive. Eller introduces two theories-attachment theory and social identification theory-to illustrate his position. Robert L. Perry and Melvin T. Peters concentrate on the African American intellectual of the 1920s, focusing on the sociological implications of the Harlem Renaissance for the African American experience. The article integrates the impact of the work of political activists, a multigenre of artists, cultural brokers and businesspersons. Jim Schnell addresses the use of African American perspectives as a way to promote a more inclusive understanding of human communications theory. His piece highlights the need for more research that really 'brings in' divergent perspectives to the mainstream of academic curriculum issues. These new views are crucial if the field of communications is to continue to challenge itself from the inside. However, the implications herein discussed can easily be applied to any other discipline for which 'new views' of the world are lacking. Michael Soldatenko looks at the situation of Chicano Studies from 1970-1 985. His essay examines the development and subsequent failure of Perspectivist Chicano Studies. Soldatenko's work highlights that fact that divergent views have always existed within Chicano Studies, and that Chicano Studies is not one standard or narrow view of understanding the experience of people of Mexican descent residing in the United States. The final article is by Ellen Puccinelli, a first place recipient of our NAES Undergraduate Student Paper Competition. Her paper is on Laura Esquivel's novel Like Wa ter for Chaco/ate in its broader contexts of genre resistance and cultural identity. Ethnic Studies Review Vol. 19, No. 2&3 The wide array of topics and perspectives found in these articles is promising for the Field of Ethnic Studies. Ethnic Studies scholars are becoming more diverse in their approaches to studying and researching our discipline. Additionally, scholars are more willing to 'agree to disagree' and recognize that these potentially difficult dialogues will only help expand and strengthen our discipline from within. Miguel A. Carranza University of Nebraska-Lincoln 11 Afrocentrism and the Peopling of the Americas Gabriel Haslip-Viera City College of the City University of New York This essay focuses on a theory of human development that has been promoted aggressively by a group of Afrocentrists in recent years - that the Western Hemisphere was first populated by "Africoids" or "Black" people who came to the Americas by way of Asia and the Bering Straits with little or no change in their physical or racial characteristics. As discussed in this article, the theory has no support in the evidence collected by scientists in various fields. The essay focuses on the basic claims and methods used by the Afrocentrists to support their theory, including their misuse or misinterpretation of mostly outdated scholarship produced in Europe and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A brief concluding section makes reference to the potential repercussions of this theory on relations between African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos of Native American and part Native American background. Afrocentrism or the Afrocentric view has emerged in recent years as one of the most controversial issues in the rancorous debate over multicultural education in this country. Afrocentrism is frequently used by critics of ethnic studies and multi-culturalism to discredit such movements fortheir alleged promotion of social and political divisiveness in U.S. society. Critics point to the anti-Semitism, the denigration of European culture, and to the smug sense of racial superiority that they see in much of the Afrocentric literature. But it should also be made clear that Afrocentrism does not constitute a monolithic point of view. Ethnic Studies Review Vol. 19, No. 2&3 (June/October 1996): 129-140. Ethnic Studies Review Vol. 19, No. 2&3 There are different types or different gradations of Afrocentrism. For example, Manning Marable has made a distinction between "scholarly" Afrocentrism and "vulgar" or popular Afrocentrism in his writings.1 To some degree, this view is accurate, but there is also considerable overlap, and as a result, it is often quite difficult to differentiate between the tWO.2 Afrocentrism or the Afrocentric view has its origins in the nineteenth century black nationalist and pan-Africanist ideas of Edward W. Blyden, Alexander Crummell, Africanus Hortonand Martin Robinson Delaney. These were among the first African descended diasporans to positively connect such people to an idealized African continent conceived as ethnically unified. Accordingly, African diasporans were seen as "a family" or "a race" that should identify with or "return to the land of their fathers and be at peace."3 These ideas and others that focused on the African origins of human culture and civilizations were adopted and developed furtherin the decades that followed by W. E. B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Aime Cesaire, Leon Damas