America’s Experts

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America’s Experts

Race and the Fictions of Sociology

Cynthia H. Tolentino

Table of Contents

$22.50 paper
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5111-5

$67.50 cloth
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5110-8

Reveals the impact of sociology on ethnic literature and the politics of race

During World War II, the rising visibility of anticolonial and antiracist movements exposed contradictions between the U.S. democratic mission in Europe and racist practices against people of color at home. Yet the professional success stories of people of color gave ideological support to the notion that liberal antiracism was spreading within the United States.

Challenging conventional accounts of U.S. ethnic literature rooted in 1960s and 1970s social movements, Cynthia H. Tolentino sees this literary work as emerging from a political climate in which arguments about the integration of racial minorities and the moral legitimacy of U.S. international leadership are intertwined. Probing how sociologists including Robert E. Park, Gunnar Myrdal, and Emory Bogardus situated Asian Americans, Filipinos, and African Americans as model citizens and problems, Tolentino contends that such studies served as a staging ground for writers of color to become narrators of racial identity, citizenship, and U.S. neocolonialism.

Tracing the literary engagements of Richard Wright, Carlos Bulosan, and Jade Snow Wong with the sociology of race, Tolentino assesses their works as critical expressions of class negotiation on the global stage and illuminates the significance of U.S. ethnic literature.

Cynthia H. Tolentino is assistant professor of English at the University of Oregon.

200 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Between Subjects and Objects

1. Sociological Interests, Racial Reform: Richard Wright’s Intellectual of Color

2. Americanization as Black Professionalization: Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma

3. Training for the American Century: Professional Filipinos in Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart

4. Not Black, Not Coolies: Pathologization, Asian American Citizenship, and Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter

Coda: The Tutelary Byways of Global Uplift

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

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America’s Experts *Race and the Fictions of Sociology* Cynthia H. Tolentino Table of Contents		$22.50 paper ISBN: 978-0-8166-5111-5 $67.50 cloth ISBN: 978-0-8166-5110-8
Reveals the impact of sociology on ethnic literature and the politics of race During World War II, the rising visibility of anticolonial and antiracist movements exposed contradictions between the U.S. democratic mission in Europe and racist practices against people of color at home. Yet the professional success stories of people of color gave ideological support to the notion that liberal antiracism was spreading within the United States. Challenging conventional accounts of U.S. ethnic literature rooted in 1960s and 1970s social movements, Cynthia H. Tolentino sees this literary work as emerging from a political climate in which arguments about the integration of racial minorities and the moral legitimacy of U.S. international leadership are intertwined. Probing how sociologists including Robert E. Park, Gunnar Myrdal, and Emory Bogardus situated Asian Americans, Filipinos, and African Americans as model citizens and problems, Tolentino contends that such studies served as a staging ground for writers of color to become narrators of racial identity, citizenship, and U.S. neocolonialism. Tracing the literary engagements of Richard Wright, Carlos Bulosan, and Jade Snow Wong with the sociology of race, Tolentino assesses their works as critical expressions of class negotiation on the global stage and illuminates the significance of U.S. ethnic literature. Cynthia H. Tolentino is assistant professor of English at the University of Oregon. 200 pages \| 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 \| 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Between Subjects and Objects 1. Sociological Interests, Racial Reform: Richard Wright’s Intellectual of Color 2. Americanization as Black Professionalization: Gunnar Myrdal’s An American Dilemma 3. Training for the American Century: Professional Filipinos in Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart 4. Not Black, Not Coolies: Pathologization, Asian American Citizenship, and Jade Snow Wong’s Fifth Chinese Daughter Coda: The Tutelary Byways of Global Uplift Acknowledgments Notes Index