Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March by Deborah Gray White

“Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March” is a book about Americans’ search for personal tranquility at the turn of the twenty-first century. It argues that beneath the surface of prosperity and peace, ordinary Americans were struggling to adjust and adapt to the forces of postmodernity – immigration, multiculturalism, feminism, globalization, deindustrialization – which were radically changing the way Americans understood themselves and each other. Using the Promise Keepers (1991-2000), the Million Man March (1995), the Million Woman March (1997), the LGBT Marches (1993 and 2000), and the Million Mom March (2000) as a prism through which to analyze the era, “Lost in the USA” reveals the massive shifts occurring in American culture, shows how these shifts troubled many Americans, what they resolved to do about them, and how the forces of postmodernity transformed the identities of some Americans. It reveals that the mass gatherings of the 1990s were therapeutic places where people did not just express their identity but where they sought new identities. It shows that the mass gatherings reveal much about coalition building, interracial worship, parenting, and marriage and family relationships. Because its approach is historical it also addresses the continuing processes of millennialism, modernism and American identity formation.

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Lost in the USA: American Identity from the Promise Keepers to the Million Mom March by Deborah Gray White

Journal of Southern History ◽

10.1353/soh.2018.0241 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 84 (3) ◽

pp. 802-803

Author(s):

De Anna J. Reese

Keyword(s):

American Identity ◽

Promise Keepers ◽

The Usa

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American Identity in the USA: Youth Perspectives

Applied Developmental Science ◽

10.1080/10888691.2011.560811 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (2) ◽

pp. 79-93 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Parissa Jahromi

Keyword(s):

American Identity ◽

The Usa

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The Creation of a Norwegian-American Identity in the usa

Journal of Migration History ◽

10.1163/23519924-00503004 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 489-511

Author(s):

Terje Mikael Hasle Joranger

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Identity Formation ◽

The United States ◽

American Identity ◽

Migration Patterns ◽

Ethnic Identity Formation ◽

The Status ◽

The Usa ◽

Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽

Separate Identity

Ethnic identity formation is the result of a process wherein the migrant combines both pre-existing values and attitudes and present experiences of the same group and its relations with other groups. This article discusses identity formation among Norwegian immigrants in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In other words, how did Norwegian immigrants arriving from a homogeneous society develop a separate identity in the multicultural society of the United States, and to what factors can we attribute this development? In a cultural process of change called ‘ethnicisation’, immigrants were transformed from the status of ‘foreigners’ to become ‘ethnics’, that is ‘Norwegian-Americans’. Identity is thus connected to the term ‘ethnicity’, and I will first present different perspectives on the term ethnicity, followed by a short summary of Norwegian migration patterns to the United States up until the early twentieth century. I will end the article by discussing components that explain the existence of a Norwegian-American identity.

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Introduction

10.5406/illinois/9780252040900.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Deborah Gray White

Keyword(s):

African Americans ◽

Gay Men ◽

Historical Perspective ◽

Gender And Sexuality ◽

Local People ◽

Promise Keepers ◽

Ability To Work ◽

The Usa

This chapter explains that the book looks at masculinity by examining, in both contemporary and historical perspective, the different ways that the Promise Keepers, the Million Man marchers and gay men approached masculinity, fatherhood, marriage, and issues of race, faith, and sexuality. Similarly, it explores how different groups of women approached femininity, feminism, motherhood, marriage, and sexuality, and examines their historical and contemporary ability to work across race, class, gender, and sexuality. It explores how African Americans navigated post-blackness, and how lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders negotiated their struggles with inclusion. As such, Lost in the USA reveals how intersectionality functions in the lives of local people and how it works and affects relationships and coalitions.

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