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 Martha Biondi,
To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City
(Harvard University Press 2003)
Organizing for racial and economic justice
The history recounted here challenges conventional assumptions of the start of the "civil rights movement" in the south mid-twentieth century. Far more radical grassroots demands were put forth in earlier struggles in places like New York City during and after WWII. Biondi, Northwestern University historian, demonstrates that the advocacy for intervention by city, state and federal governments to halt discrimination in employment and housing included demands strategically placed by alliances of organization for group-based remedies, numerical goals and practices of redistribution. Biondi assesses the myriad activism as backdrop to the Black Power era that followed. The book deepens understandings of African American radicalism and of anticommunism as white supremacy masked.
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 Eunice Hyunhye Cho, Francisco Arguelles, Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, Sasha Khokha,
Bridge: Building a Race and Immigration Dialogue in the Global Economy: A Popular Educational Resource for Immigrant & Refugee Community Organizers,
(National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights 2004)
Antiracism organizing
Written to generate deeper dialogue and understandings among people from different backgrounds, this creative resource book takes on compelling issues of racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, language barriers, anti-immigrant organizing and more. It does so in ways that are realistic, and that build bridges to cross-community common purpose. Eight modules guide a participatory group process of learning and reviewing the history of US immigration policies. The pictorial timeline photos have powerful impact and can be used as posters. Tools for facilitators include handout sheets, case study examples and a bevy of resources. Thanks, NIRRR and co-authors, for developing and field testing this useful book!
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 Alexis De Veaux,
Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde
(Norton 2004)
Feminism
This ground-breaking biography of a cultural icon unearths the complexities embodied in the life of noted poet, essayist and activist Audre Lorde. Much in today's understandings regarding the power of women stems from her path-breaking writings and interchanges. Through the use of interviews, Lorde's journal entries, letters and more, DeVeaux writes of Lorde's evolving perspectives on her Caribbean roots, her outsider experiences in school, her sexual orientation and adventures, her marriage and children, and her relationships with various writers and activists.
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 Pansie Hart Flood, Author
Amy Wummer, Illustrator,
It's Test Day, Tiger Turcotte
(CarolRhoda/Lerner Books 2004)
Racial identity
In this children's book, a seven year old boy anxiously anticipates taking a standardized test. As the day unfolds, he is confronted with a variety of emotions. The challenge arises for him, however, before the subject questions get asked. Tiger must fill in the bubble on the form that asks for his racial identity. As a child whose parents are Indian and Latina, he does not know how to indicate his embrace of all of his heritage. The illustrations vividly portray the feelings and actions of the child, teachers and parents. Both author and illustrator are commended for their creative approach to validating the feelings of anxiety over the test and the unanticipated challenge to difference.
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 M. Evelina Galang, Editor; Eileen Tabios, Sumaina Maira, Jordan Isip, Anida Yoeu Esguerra,
Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images
(Coffee House Press 2003)
Asian Americans: Social Conditions
This collaboratively developed anthology of incisive fiction, historical analysis, artwork and more is a response to a disparaging remark printed in Milwaukee Magazine. A restaurant review referred to the Filipino owner's child as a "rambunctious little monkey." The outraged response spread from the Filipino American community locally to the national Asian American communities when the editor trivialized the offense. The book includes the originating article and letters of complaint, an analysis of why the Philippines is relatively invisible in the telling of American history, and many essays, ads, cartoons, poems , jokes and stories on various Asian American experiences of discrimination and resistance. The collection includes a humorous top ten list of "obvious objections" to making a big thing about the original slur. Culture, history, resistance stories all are covered.
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 Elaine C. Hagopian, Editor; Susan M. Akram, Naseer Aruri, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Samih Farsoun, Kevin R. Johnson, Robert Morlino, Nancy Murray, Will Youmans
Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims
(Haymarket Books/Pluto Press 2004)
Arab Americans: Social Conditions
Cogent analyses of the relationship between accelerated repression of Muslims and Arabs domestically, justifications for war on Afghanistan and Iraq, and U.S. empire building abroad. Several authors speak to shifts in government policy, and to the unaccountability of government and the media. They draw upon newspaper articles, journals, TV and other media, legal discourse, public polls and political speeches in documented the demonization of Arabs/Muslims in the United States. The authors speak to ways that ordinary people can resist these attacks on all of our fundamental rights.
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 David K. Johnson,
The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays in the Federal Government
(University of Chicago Press 2004)
Homophobia: Anticommunism
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal agencies drew thousands of young men and women to clerical and administrative jobs in Washington. That urban environment fostered a gay and lesbian subculture. Government employees became vulnerable as a moral panic occurred and was used as a political wedge. Johnson demonstrates how the Lavender Scare helped fan the flames of the Red Scare. Communists were perceived by some to be perverting American youth in order to weaken the country for a communist takeover. The rationale was not that homosexuals were communists, but that they could be manipulated by communists. The book contributes significantly to public knowledge of McCarthyism, the 1950s, and gay and lesbian history.
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 Yuri Nakahara Kochiyama,
Passing It On - A Memoir
(UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press 2004)
Activism: Biography
Initially written for her grandchildren, Yuri Kochiyama's memoir offers insight into social conditions for Japanese Americans, and into those alliance builders who chose to work for social justice for all who are oppressed. The reader learns about the experiences and consequences for families torn away by the government's internment processes and camps in the 40s, about love and perseverance in raising socially conscious children in the midst of progressive movements of the mid and latter twentieth century, and about a stalwart activist's decades of work for political empowerment, racial justice, Puerto Rican independence, Third World liberation, working class equity, reparations, freedom for political prisoners, ethnic studies and more. The book, which includes 90 photographs and over 30 historical documents that are part of the Yuri Kochiyama Collection at UCLA, was co-edited by Marjorie Lee, Audee Kochiyama-Holman and Akemi Kochiyama-Sardinha.
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 Amanda E. Lewis,
Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities
(Rutgers University Press 2004)
Education: Racism
This ethnographic study of three public elementary schools in California examines how racial hierarchies are reproduced in day-to-day lives, and how the color line is drawn and redrawn in perceptions and practices by students, teachers and administrators. Lewis provides examples of how race and racial inequality are taught in myriad ways, contrary to colorblind narratives, and how "everyday race-making" is influencing children's perceptions and self-esteem. She observes how local contexts change micro-processes of racialization and the construction and reconstruction of racial boundaries.
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 David K. Shipler,
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
(Knopf 2004)
Working Class; Poverty
Noted journalist David Shipler describes from various angles the faces, lives and issues of the unemployed, the underemployed, and those exploited by multiple jobs. He covers a wide range of topics such as race, immigration, substance abuse, corporate incentives, globalization and more. Writing in neither a judgmental nor patronizing fashion, Shipler talks about how the globalized economy has modified the Horatio Alger myth. The book draws upon academic research, theories, policies and, most importantly, lived experiences of the poor and their employers. Conclusion: we must simultaneously address the full range of interrelated problems facing those who are impoverished instead of attacking one issue at a time.
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