Hunger of Memory : The Education of Richard Rodriguez

Book Description

Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum.

Here is the poignant journey of a “minority student” who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation — from his past, his parents, his culture — and so describes the high price of “making it” in middle-class America.

Provocative in its positions on affirmative action and bilingual education, Hunger of Memory is a powerful political statement, a profound study of the importance of language ... and the moving, intimate portrait of a boy struggling to become a man.

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Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum.

Here is the poignant journey of a "minority student" who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation -- from his past, his parents, his culture -- and so describes the high price of "making it" in middle-class America.

Provocative in its positions on affirmative action and bilingual education, Hunger of Memory is a powerful political statement, a profound study of the importance of language... and the moving, intimate portrait of a boy struggling to become a man.

"Arresting... Splendidly written intellectual autobiography."
   THE BOSTON GLOBE

"Superb autobiographical essay... Mr. Rodriguez offers himself as an example of the long labor of change: its costs, about which he is movingly frank, its loneliness, but also its triumph."
   THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

Customer Reviews:

Among the Educated.......2007-07-18

Esteemed a classic, this work has the merit, upon first reading, of making the reader feel he has been initiated into the long lost tribe of truth tellers, something akin to the book readers of Fahrenheit 451. We meet somebody for whom education is a real thing, something that is life changing, enlightening, and it estranges him from his family, and of course from all people, because the sophistication he gains from his education makes him an enemy to the ignorant. Much is lost, but what is gained far outweighs that loss. He knows it, and we get the message. Bravo, Richard Rodriguez.

Whine, whine, whine.......2007-04-09

I read this book as a part of a college class on marginalized/minority writers. Out of a class of eight, I and another girl both thought this fellow was an unmitigated whiner and the book was terrible. The rest of the class thought it was compelling and thought provoking (or else they just wanted a good grade that week.) It seems to me that it is almost forbidden to express dislike of a minority writer in a classroom environment these days for fear of being branded a racist. I did not like this book. I was in the minority--read it and decide for yourself.

not exactly a great autobiographical read.......2007-02-28

*Hunger of Memory* was an ok read. There was nothing unforgettable in the book. So, that left me somewhat disappointed. Rodriguez provided his personal accounts on some topics, such as assimilation, language, bi-bi education, Catholicism, affirmative action, etc.

I enjoyed reading about his views and experiences with assimilating with American values and whatnots. For those of us who are minorities, I believe that we can relate to that. His personal accounts kind of became reminders of my childhood and helped me re-evaluate how I was assimilated.

The other thing I enjoyed reading was about his college education and "moving up" as a minority in regards to scholarships and job offers. As a minority, you never really know if you're being sought after due to your minority status or your expertise/specialty. Rodriguez was honest about his feelings and views on such things.

His portrayal of his mother reminded me so much of my mother. I had to laugh and groan in memory. It is interesting to see how he portrays a separation between him and his family due to his being an academician. It as if his family expect him to know everything because he's educated. Yet, when he gives answers, those answers are "over the top" for them. They just dismiss him and move on. At the same time, they still encourage him for further achievements...as long as he leaves out the family because it is a private matter.

What I didn't like about the book was that he droned on and on about language (Spanish & English). I'm guess I was bored with this as I had just finished reading *Breaking Through* and *Growing Up Latino*. Both of these books mentioned this. I realize it is a common experience by Hispanics in regards to Spanish and English. But in Rodriguez, he dwells on language forever.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked half of it and hated the other half. It was like he wrote about himself but at the same time, he didn't. This book was more of his views on things rather than getting to know him.

I was born in Mexico and faced similar issues. This is awful........2006-08-03

Richard Rodriguez whines and complains in his book. I have similar experiences. I was born in Mexico. I was reared in America and went to Catholic schools. I have a darker than average complexion. People often ask me what country I was born in just by looking at me, but that did not warp my wife like it seemed to for Rodriguez. I have a friend who went to Stanford, like Rodriguez, on scholarship, but he did not whine about it. I googled Rodriguez and found a published speech where he continues to show weak character. Here is a quote from one of his speeches: "... if you really want to scare the United States of America, all you would have to say to the United States of America is "I'm going to marry you. I'm going to start dating your son." " This is pretty sad and tasteless. Besides showing weak character, Rodriguez is a poor writer. I have never seen so many sentence fragments. At one point in his book he admits he never liked writing when he was in school. It shows. This book is an insult to the Latin-American community from a condescending publisher. We deserve better.

Going beyond his weakness as a writer and as a person, I would say Rodriguez realized his life was inauthentic (re: Heidegger). He was thrown into his life and rebelled at the life he was given (a degree from Stanford, many job offers in spite of incomplete and inferior creditials). He rejected the life for which he was prepared, but he sunk into an unending cycle of complaining instead of creating an authentic life for himself. He needed to find some way of creating a meaningful life for himself. There are many ways to create for yourself a meaningful life. "Achieve Lasting Happiness" by Robert Canright is good book based on the principals of self-cultivation. If Rodriguez had success in creating for himself an authentic life, this book might have had some merit. As it is, it is just sad.

I hate this book........2006-06-16

This is one of the worst books I have ever read. I understand that is fine writing, but the book is tasteless. I find Rodriguez arrogant and lonely. Is he trying to say that the turning point of his life was when the nun's came to his parents home. I hate this book it is one of my worst reads ever.

Minority Games: Interacting Agents in Financial Markets (Oxford Finance)

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Should I, or should I not...

Minority Games: Interacting Agents in Financial Markets (Oxford Finance)
Damien Challet , Matteo Marsili , and Yi-Cheng Zhang
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198566409

Book Description

The Minority Game is a physicist's attempt to explain market behaviour by the interaction between traders. With a minimal set of ingredients and drastic assumptions, this model reproduces market ecology among different types of traders. Its emphasis is on speculative trading and information flow. The book first describes the philosophy lying behind the conception of the Minority Game in 1997, and includes in particular a discussion about the El Farol bar problem. Then it reviews the main steps in later developments, including both the theory and its applications to market phenomena. This book gives a colourful and stylized, but also realistic picture of how financial markets operate.

Customer Reviews:

Should I, or should I not..........2005-03-17

... go to the bar tonight?

Inspired by Brian Arthur's El Farol Bar Game, the minority Game provided the path for the entry of many statistical physicists into econophysics. Game theory, since the 1980's, has become a large part of economic theory, but is largely restricted to studies of Nash equilibria, which (by Nash's own design) is a neo-classical idea. Economic systems are instead complex, not amenable to any imaginable equilibrium analysis. As Per Bak said, equilibrium is a dead system, like a glass of water at rest. Challet, Marsili, and Zhang are three leading researchers in economics, and are the experts on the Minority Game.

This book begins with a very nice introduction to the main ideas and then includes a compilation of the main papers in the field by the Fribourg Group, who are leaders in the new and growing field of econophysics, and other main players. Physicists will enjoy seeing the tools of statistical mechanics in action in an economic setting, and economists will be encouraged to think outside their equilibrium straightjacket by studying the book. But the full range of topics is covered, Nash equilibria as well as cooperation. the compilation also includes some very nice contributions to finance theory and market efficiency.

Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market (Russell Sage Foundation Books at Harvard University Press)

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Great if you're interested in questions about poverty
Climbing a Greasy Ladder to Success

Chutes and Ladders: Navigating the Low-Wage Labor Market (Russell Sage Foundation Books at Harvard University Press)
Katherine S. Newman
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0674023366

Book Description

Now that the welfare system has been largely dismantled, the fate of America's poor depends on what happens to them in the low-wage labor market. In this timely volume, Katherine S. Newman explores whether the poorest workers and families benefited from the tight labor markets and good economic times of the late 1990s. Following black and Latino workers in Harlem, who began their work lives flipping burgers, she finds more good news than we might have expected coming out of a high-poverty neighborhood. Many adult workers returned to school and obtained trade certificates, high school diplomas, and college degrees. Their persistence paid off in the form of better jobs, higher pay, and greater self-respect. Others found union jobs and, as a result, brought home bigger paychecks, health insurance, and a pension. More than 20 percent of those profiled in Chutes and Ladders are no longer poor.

A very different story emerges among those who floundered even in a good economy. Weighed down by family obligations or troubled partners and hindered by poor training and prejudice, these "low riders" moved in and out of the labor market, on and off public assistance, and continued to depend upon the kindness of family and friends.

Supplementing finely drawn ethnographic portraits, Newman examines the national picture to show that patterns around the country paralleled the findings from some of New York's most depressed neighborhoods. More than a story of the shifting fortunes of the labor market, Chutes and Ladders asks probing questions about the motivations of low-wage workers, the dreams they have for the future, and their understanding of the rules of the game.

Customer Reviews:

Great if you're interested in questions about poverty.......2007-05-17

"Chutes and Ladders" is a fascinating longitudinal study of low-wage workers in the U.S. labor market. I would like to see it become better known, especially among poor people and those who work with them. The main message of Newman's book is that it's not easy to climb out of poverty, but a surprising number of people do manage it.

I felt that Newman shied away from some of the easiest conclusions to draw from her own work. She notes frequently that problems with kids are a major reason why many people fail to escape poverty. Child care is at best expensive and at worst unavailable. Kids get sick and have to be taken care of, often leading to job loss among the poor. Yet Newman says almost nothing about the use of birth control and/or abortion to prevent poverty or increase the chance of a family escaping it. As far as I'm concerned, kids are a luxury item. My husband and I have a son, age ten. Although we both have good jobs, we have found even one child to be incredibly expensive in both money and time. I can't imagine how we could manage with two. Yet many subjects of Newman's study, already poor, go on to have two or five or even seven kids! No wonder so many of them stayed poor!

Newman mentions recent economic growth as one of the factors benefitting the poor in the U.S. This is misleading. Economic growth is generally measured by GDP, which is a measure so inaccurate so as to be almost laughable. GDP is not corrected for increasing population, pollution, exhaustion of natural resources, or declining quality of life. More accurate measures of economic growth, such as the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare or Genuine Progress Indicator, tend to show that there has been almost no genuine economic growth in the U.S. since the 1970s. For more on this, see McKibben's book "Deep Economy," Daly's "Beyond Growth," or Brian Czech's "Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train."

I also thought that Newman overlooked important questions on why it is that the quality of life for poor people in the U.S. is so low. After all, the average wage of a burger-flipping worker in the U.S. would put a family well into the middle class in most countries. Why is the cost of living so high here when the prices of most basic commodities do not differ all that much between countries? This is a complex question, but some surprising answers have already been found, which Newman would do well to consider. For example, one of the main reasons it costs so much to live in the U.S. is that our transportation system is organized around the automobile. Cars not only cost money for those who own them, they require high taxes to pay for all those highways. Everybody pays these taxes, including those who don't own a car. Cars also increase housing costs, because parking has to be provided for all those cars, which spreads out cities. For more on this, see Donald Shoup's book "The High Cost of Free Parking."

Overall, though, Newman's book is interesting and well worth reading.

Climbing a Greasy Ladder to Success.......2007-01-27

Maybe you've read Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel-and-Dimed or David K. Shipler's The Working Poor. Or perhaps you've seen the episode of Morgan Spurlock's TV series 30 Days in which he and his girlfriend try to make it on minimum wage jobs for one month. Then you know that it is just not possible to live on minimum wage. Is welfare the only alternative? Is there any reason at all to work at mind-numbing, soul-sucking, back-breaking minimum wage McJobs? Katherine Newman takes a look at that question from the viewpoint, not of a journalist, but of an anthropologist. She and her grad student team interviewed about three hundred applicants at Harlem fast food restaurants in 1996 and then followed their progress for two years. The applicants were from Harlem, all from poor families and mostly Latino or African-American. They ranged in age from teenagers to mid-thirties. Newman documented the two-year project in her previous book No Shame in My Game.

She and her team went back eight years later to see what had happened to the "subjects." They were only able to find about forty of the original applicants, so while it doesn't constitute a large enough sample to draw statistical conclusions from, they thought it still might be useful to see what paths the most successful workers had followed. Chutes & Ladders is the story of what they found after eight years. As anthropologists, they had no preconceived ideas or expectations. The reader however, might have a few ideas of what to expect, and might end up being surprised. I was.

Some of the workers didn't do too well over the years, and ended up on welfare, disillusioned and angry. But some of the workers were more successful than anyone would have predicted, working in white-collar jobs that paid well above poverty level, over $100,000 in one case. In fact, about 20% of the original fast food applicants were no longer poor after eight years. How did they do it? Did they have certain advantages over the others? Did they get a lucky break along the way? Does working at a McJob really prepare you for bigger and better jobs? There are no simple answers.

Newman presents all the data, in charts and statistics, and in a narrative that is just as readable and compelling as Ehrenreich's and Shipler's. You will have to draw your own conclusions. It seemed to me that the most successful workers did not gain any advantage from working at fast food restaurants or other minimum wage jobs. They just got the best job they could at the time and moved to better work when they found it. But they didn't wait around for better jobs to magically appear. They kept their ears open and paid attention to who was hiring and what sort of applicants were required. They adjusted themselves to the best of their ability to look and sound like what the employers wanted. They worked hard and learned fast, but they weren't necessarily the smartest or the most advantaged (or even the least disadvantaged). They seemed to be the ones with an idea of where they wanted to go. They wanted to succeed and they figured out, in different ways, how to get there.

There are bound to be some people who look at a study like this and conclude that since some people can pull themselves out of poverty, then everyone should be able to. Even some of the workers in the study came to this conclusion. "If I can do it, then anyone should be able to." But remember, it was only about 20% of these young and healthy workers who were able to succeed. That leaves 80% who were still working minimum wage jobs, not working at all, or who were working off the grid. It really is hard to make it on minimum wage, and adding complications such as child care and/or unexpected bills (usually health-related) can derail the best of plans.

Still, it's hard not to find the results of this study more positive than negative. If 20% were able to succeed with no help at all, then imagine how many could succeed with some help. Health insurance for everyone would be a great start.

Average customer rating:

valuable resource

Multicultural Marketing
Alfred L. Schreiber , and Barry Lenson
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0844226017

Book Description

Consider These Facts

Today, ethnic Americans--African-Americans, Asian-Pacific-Americans, and Hispanic-Americans--make up 25 percent of the U.S. population. By 2010 this figure will be 33 percent; by 2040, it will be 53 percent.
Ethnic Americans are increasing in population seven times as fast as nonethnic Americans.
The spending power of ethnic Americans has doubled over the past decade--to well over $1 trillion.

But Then Consider This Fact:

As recently as 1997, only 1 percent of American marketing dollars was spent for advertising directly to ethnic Americans.

Is There a Message Here? You Bet. If your company is not marketing directly to--and hiring--ethnic Americans, you are losing access to an emerging market whose size rivals that of Latin America or Eastern Europe . . . The time to start investing in targeted ethnic and minority marketing--in selling to the new America--is now. "Significant demographic shifts have taken place in America in the last twenty years. These changes will continue until, by midcentury, multicultural Americans will for the first time constitute a statistical majority. Every marketer, regardless of product or service, needs to reexamine his or her marketing programs to make sure they are addressing the specific needs of this burgeoning class of multicultural consumers. "With each passing year, this is becoming more and more of a business imperative, one that a number of well-known companies have begun to successfully address. AT&T is appealing to specific calling groups in their own languages. Chrysler saw its sales to African-Americans rise significantly once it began its culturally related television campaigns. These are just two of the scores of examples we discuss in Multicultural Marketing that underscore the quick success many marketers have enjoyed once they embraced culturally related ethnic marketing." -- Alfred L. Schreiber

Customer Reviews:

valuable resource.......2003-09-10

A very valuable resource. It includes all the relevant stats, and research to build a business case for increasing your ethnic marketing budget. If you are having a hard time getting buy-in from senior management for your ethnic marketing initiatives, this book is great ammunition.

The Unspoken Truth: Race, Culture and Other Taboos

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must read
A Breath of Reality At Last: Gasp! Gasp!
An Excellent Expose`

The Unspoken Truth: Race, Culture and Other Taboos
Frank Borzellieri
Manufacturer: Cultural Studies Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

ASIN: 0965638316

Book Description

In "The Unspoken Truth: Race, Culture and Other Taboos," Frank Borzellieri addresses issues which current political orthodoxy does not permit to be discussed in any honest way. But Frank Borzellieri ignores orthodoxy, dogma and political correctness in the most thoroughly researched and convincingly honest collection of essays to appear on the most controversial topics in America. Read the truth about: *Race and the Right of Free Speech *The Myth of Integration *Affirmative Action: Discrimination Against Whites *Multicultural Madness *Why Diversity is Our Weakness *The Lunacy of Anti-Discrimination Laws *The Disastrous Impact of Third World Immigration *Gun Control and Other Forms of Tyranny

Customer Reviews:

must read.......2006-02-01

This is another of the important books that must be read by all who care about the USA,it is terrible that so many of the truths in these essays are either unknown, or ignored by ,possibly, millions.These essays easily hit home with so many americans that they cannot be ignored or covered up any more.Something's gotta give!Many things are brought to light here by Frank that are unspeakable in the daily media.

A Breath of Reality At Last: Gasp! Gasp!.......2005-07-03

I have just finished "The Unspoken Truth."

We are not supposed to hear from people like Frank Borzellieri.

We hear a lot ABOUT people like Frank Borzellieri. We just aren't allowed to hear FROM people like Frank Borzellieri.

Which tells us a lot about the pathetic state of public dialogue in modern America.

Europeans often remark about the USA that Americans have more de jure freedom of speech than any country in Europe but that there is less diversity of opinion in America than anywhere in the Old World.

It is important that people like Borzellieri be heard, that their ideas be given a fair and thoughtful consideration.

The "fringe" or the "fever swamps of reaction" or the "right-wing extremists" - about which we hear frequently in the media and academic world - are not "nuts."

Such people make a cogent case. Their arguments are not silly, as the "authorities" would like us to believe.

Liberals -as well as people who in their heart of hearts agree with Borzelliere - owe it to themselves to read this book.

Liberals should ask themselves if they have ever read a book giving the "extreme right" point of view on a subject like race and racial equality.

How can an "intellectual" really claim to be a thoughtful person, if his ideas have not been arrived at by reading all opinions but are merely the result of parroting what was fed him in the school system and the media?

The title of the book might be changed to "The Unheard Truth."

Mr. Borzellieri and those like him speak what they believe is the truth (and they make, as shocking as it may appear to smug liberal intellectuals, a pretty compelling case for their positions).

But very few people HEAR what they have to say.

A classic example - cited by the author in his companion book "Don't Take It Personally" - is the Race Commission created by former President Clinton.

When Clinton announced in June, 1997, in a speech at the University of California at San Diego, that he was creating a Race Commission, he said that there needed to be "...an honest laying on the tableof what we all believe and think."

Very good. Isn't that what is supposed to take place in a democratic, free society? Aren't we supposed to consider all points of view and then make an informed, thoughtful decision?

Wrong!

As Borzellieri points out, Clinton immediately spiked any chance of the Race Commission allowing an honest expression of diverse views by appointing as chairman of the commission, a tired and tiresome old Black poverty pimp named John Hope Franklin, a Black historian who has dined out for most of his life on the White guilt trip.

Worse was to come.

It was quickly announced that no criticism would be made of so-called "affirmative action" (Liberal Establishment code for mandated racial discrimination against White Americans).

The entire affair came to be nothing more than a choreographed propaganda exercise.

There would be more chance of a panel honestly considering differing points of view under Castro than under the American Establishment.

Why is that?

Why is the American Establishment in general - and the Liberal American Establishment in particular - so desperately afraid of dissent? Of REAL dissent, that is, as opposed to phony dissent.

Americans who aren't afraid of facing ideas head on and who are tired of our moral nannies shielding us from anything but their tired, worn-out cliches should rush to buy this book.

Hey? What could be more "un-American" than reading something that speaks for the American heartland?

An Excellent Expose`.......2001-07-12

Mr. Frank Borzellieri is a man with beliefs, beliefs that he is more than willing to back up with hard facts. I first read about Mr. Borzellieri in the July 2001 edition of American Renaissance, and was intrigued by his words, and his willingness to express them - seemingly without fear of repercussions. This is an excellent book, with a foreward by Mr. Jared Taylor... Well worth the wait for shipment.

Hispanic Market Handbook: The Definitive Source for Reaching This Lucrative Segment of American Consumers

Average customer rating:

Dangerous Oversimplification

Hispanic Market Handbook: The Definitive Source for Reaching This Lucrative Segment of American Consumers
M. Isabel Valdes , and Marta H. Seoane
Manufacturer: Gale Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People

ASIN: 0810385007

Customer Reviews:

Dangerous Oversimplification.......2001-11-18

Dangerous Oversimplification

If the Hispanic Market were a music CD, this book would be only the cover...and an oversimplified and dangerously traditional one at that.
This book regurgitates (or maybe CREATED) the standard image of a Latino consumer.

If you know nothing of the Hispanic Market, you might want to read it. But if you don't follow it with a serious study of the subject (like Arlene Dávila's, Latinos INC) you'll be left soaking in stereotypes that will inhibit your true understanding of this complex market.

The main problem is that as she slams obvious stereotypes (sombreros, burros etc..) she ignores (and perhaps was instrumental in creating) conceptual stereotypes.

Blanket comments like -Hispanics are not individualistic- have lead marketers down the wrong path for years. Valdes' is great at pointing out the differences of Latino's, but in doing so, completely ignores their similarities to the General Market, thereby giving marketers a dangerously PARTIAL understanding of this consumer.

Watch some Spanish television for a few hours. You'll notice some repulsively traditional commercials here and there. These are the fault of Valdes and "researchers" and "marketers" like her. (I must admit that these commercials have been effective in the past, but as advertising muscle increases against Hispanics, they've become all but useless. Why? They don't represent the `whole Hispanic' and reach the consumer on an equally partial level.)

Valdes' understanding of Hispanics is probably what Dávila would accuse of "...selling and promoting generalized ideas about `Hispanics' to be readily marketed by corporate America."

Amazon.com

If the 1996 presidential election marked the year of the soccer mom, then the 2000 campaign ought to usher in the year of Joe Sixpack, according to Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rogers. Or, at least an early-21st-century version of the white working stiff who was widely viewed as the key to success in American politics between the New Deal and 1980s. "It's next to impossible to cement a dominant electoral coalition without capturing the support of a good share of the forgotten majority"--i.e., the roughly 55 percent of the voting population that is white, earns a moderate income, has a low-rung white collar job or labors in the service industry, and lives in the suburbs. As Teixeira and Rogers admit, this is an incredibly diverse group of people. Yet, the authors claim, they also share common interests--mainly economic--that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans address. America's Forgotten Majority suggests that these folks played a central, if unappreciated, role in the elections of the 1990s, and it proposes some ways both parties might change their approaches to tap this hidden reservoir of votes.

Here the authors' own political biases become clear. "We need a new era of strong government--one in which government doesn't sit on the sidelines but makes a serious effort to solve the great national problems that divide Americans from one another," write Teixeira and Rogers. That sounds like the talk of Democrats disaffected by their party's Clinton-era moderations and, indeed, the authors essentially urge Democrats to revive their party's working-class roots. As for the Republicans, Teixeira and Rogers think they ought to act more like Democrats. Until one of the parties remembers the forgotten majority, "Democrats and Republicans will be reduced to 'marketing at the margins'--attempting to cobble together temporary electoral coalitions in a basically unfavorable and dealigned political universe." It's an intriguing analysis, albeit one more suited to Democratic interests than Republican ones. Fans of E.J. Dionne, John Judis, Robert Kuttner, and Robert Reich will want to have a copy of America's Forgotten Majority on their shelves. --John J. Miller

Book Description

A stunning analysis of how American political parties have neglected the core of the nation's electorate-the white working class

Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rogers tackle a central mystery of twentieth-century electoral politics-how did the Democratic party lose the vote of the white working class, which today constitutes roughly 55 percent of the electorate? And why do both parties continue to ignore the wants and needs of this critical mass of American voters?

This "forgotten majority" has played a decisive role in federal elections and policy over the past thirty years, but its experience of declining prosperity and party neglect over the last several decades has left its loyalties unstable. Teixeira and Rogers argue that it is time for politicians to realize that this group will shape the nation's political fortunes in 2000 and beyond.

Customer Reviews:

Timely.......2000-12-12

The mere mention of a white working class causes many pundits to cringe. Liberals, because the notion of a "white" anything smacks of political incorrectness; conservatives, because mention of any kind of working class puts the fear of Marx in their soul. For decades this key demographic group has been either ignored in polite conversation or caricatured in popular culture. Either way their collective existence has remained submerged, like an iceberg. Yet, as Teixiera and Rogers point out, this grouping composes 55% of the American electorate, or more than enough votes to guarantee governance to any party that can win their allegiance.

This slim volume is elegantly structured, very plainly written, effectively argued, and numerically buttressed, (being neither a statistician nor a political scientist, I'm unable to critically analyze the numbers & so, take them at face value). The authors' aim is to show that this key grouping is identifiable (by income and educational levels), grossly underserved by government ( falling income levels since 1973, without compensatory programs that are perceived as favoring minorities), and without fixed partisan loyalties. ( though working class men have lately trended toward conservative appeals).This last is significant, because the authors seek to show how the loyalty of this class can be won in today's politico-economic mix by advancing the right kind of programmatic appeals, ones that importantly seek to unify along class lines rather than divide along racial lines. In the process the authors must also attack some of the myths that currently surround this grouping, such as their endemic racism or the alleged disappearance of their very existence. No lasting governance can be won by any party, the authors provocatively contend, without significant support from this forgotten majority that has been so used, abused and ignored by the elite powers that be. In sum, there is in the book abundant grist for Republicans, Democrats, and third-partyites to chew on and is well worth the price.

You know it's an election year . . ........2000-07-20

when books like this roll around. "America's Forgotten Majority" is clearly written for the Democratic Party, even though the authors claimed to be apolitical in the book's preface ("the content of politics is not our chief concern").

The central thesis is that the biggest chunk of the American electorate (55%) consists of the white working class. The authors define working class not just in old, heavy-industry terms (the USA is a post-industrial society and relatively few of us earn our living in industry) but also in low-level white collar, technical and secretarial fields. These are exactly the fields that have had the roughest times economically since 1973. The members of this forgotten majority are better educated in the past (they tend to have a high school diploma or even a two-year college degree) but they tend to vote like the working class.

The press, and by inference the Democratic Party, however, has become infatuated with the upper-middle-class, college-educated "soccer mom." College graduates are the people whose standard of living accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. College graduates may or may not constitute a reliable "swing" faction but they are only about one-fifth of the electorate, say the authors.

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This reference work is the only comprehensive Directory to document funds available from mainstream religious bodies for secular and religious minority projects. The Guide contains 67 grant programs and 34 loan programs available from Judeo-Christian sources.

Citizen Worker: The Experience of Free Workers in the United States and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century

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Citizen Worker: The Experience of Free Workers in the United States and the Free Market during the Nineteenth Century
David Montgomery
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Labor & Industrial Relations | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Labor & Industrial Relations | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0521420571

Book Description

In the 1990s, democracy and market freedom are often discussed as though they were synonymous or interchangeable. What the experience of workers in the United States actually reveals is that as government became more democratic, what it could do to shape daily life became more restricted. This original and significant work examines the relationship between workers and government by focusing not on the legal regulations of unions and strikes, but on popular struggles for citizens' rights. The extent and failures of workers' efforts to exercise power through political parties provide insights from the nineteenth century to guide our thinking about the twenty-first.

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