Ethnic Dimension in American History

Through association with others, individuals come to know themselves; and through placement among people of their own national, cultural, and religious kind they gain a larger American identity. This paradoxical relationship between individual and community has special meaning in American history. In neighborhoods and other forms of association, members of immigrant ethnicities along with racial and religious minorities have sought to preserve their distinctiveness against social homogenization.

This book's 17 chapters cover the history of ethnicity in American society, from the first Americans before colonization up to the present day. Groups covered include Native Americans and Americans of varied backgrounds: European, Chinese, African, Jewish, Filipino, Japanese, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Korean, Haitian, Indonesian, and Muslim.

James S. Olson is Distinguished Professor of History at Sam Houston State University. He is the recipient of the university's Excellence in Teaching Award and Excellence in Research Award. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of more than thirty books, including Catholic Immigrants in America (1993); Winning is the Only Thing: Sports in America Since 1945 (1989); Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam Fifth Edition (Blackwell, 2006); and John Wayne American (1996), which won the Ray and Pat Brown National Book Award from the Popular Culture Association. His book A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory (2001) won the Diolece Parmelee Award from the Texas Historical Foundation. His most recent book—Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History (2002)—was nominated by The Johns Hopkins University Press for the Pulitzer Prize in History, won the History of Science Category Award from the Association of American Publishers, and was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as one of the best non-fiction books in America for 2002.