“There’s a Rainbow on the River”: The Affordances of Boy Soprano Bobby Breen in 1930s Hollywood

This chapter discusses the cultural and industrial significance of boy soprano and child star Bobby Breen, who starred in a series of popular musical films in 1930s Hollywood. It argues that Breen’s status as a presexual child allowed his queer-coded voice and persona to escape the condemnation of gender-nonconforming adult male singers that was prevalent at the time, opening up spaces for queer reception, resistance, and celebration. An interdisciplinary, intersectional framework is applied to identify Breen’s particular affordances, offering a broad and inclusive application of the word “queer” to demonstrate how Breen’s boy soprano activated multiple kinds of social difference. Breen’s narratives place his characters in direct opposition to white, middle-class, masculinist, heteronormative men and the institutions they represent, giving representation and agency to otherwise marginalized groups as central narrative actors, industry professionals and audience members, including gender-variant and queer people, women, working-class white ethnics, and Black and other communities of color.

“New White Ethnics” or “New Latinos”? Hispanic/Latino Pan-ethnicity and Ancestry Reporting among South American Immigrants to the United States

This article explores the identification patterns of South American immigrants to the United States, as measured via Hispanic/Latino ethnicity and ancestry reporting on the US Census. Using data from the 2006–2010 and 2011–2015 American Community Survey, my analysis reveals four main findings. First, I show significant heterogeneity in identity patterns and in sociodemographic, immigration, and geographic characteristics between South American and Mexican immigrants in the United States. Second, I find that Southern Cone immigrants opt not to report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity and “birth-country” ancestry (ancestry that is concordant with birth country, such as Colombian or Chilean) to a greater extent than Andean immigrants and, instead, report more distal “ancestral-origin” ancestries (i.e., Spanish, Japanese, etc.). Third, I show that those immigrants who do report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity are more likely to report “birth-country” ancestry than “ancestral-origin” ancestry, net of other factors. Finally, my analysis demonstrates that Brazilian immigrants chart a different path of identification among South American immigrants and almost unanimously do not report Hispanic/Latino ethnicity while overwhelmingly reporting “Brazilian” ancestry. Taken together, variation in Hispanic/Latino ethnicity and ancestry reporting across South American immigrant groups has implications for their incorporation into US society, as well as for the degree to which these immigrants see themselves as racialized actors in the United States. Some South American immigrant groups (Southern Cone immigrants) appear to be incorporating as “New White ethnics,” and others (Andean immigrants) appear to be incorporating as “New Latinos.” Researchers of international migration should carefully consider these identification differences and their implications for the measurement and study of “Hispanic/Latino” immigrants and their descendants in the United States.

“This is an Italian Church with a Large Hispanic Population”: Factors and Strategies in White Ethno–Religious Place Making

This paper examines how a group of white ethnic, mostly Italian American, Catholics participate in ethno–religious place making in a predominantly Latino church. In light of a growing number of Latino parishioners, white ethnic church members engage in place making activities to ascribe a white ethno–religious identity to place. Drawing on participant observations, interviews, and archival documents, I examine the impetus behind, and strategies used, in making ethno–religious place. I find that place attachment and group threat drive white ethnics to make place. They do so by employing strategies of place making, place marking, and place marketing. The findings point to the importance of using place as a focal point of social analysis and understanding how people make place.

Racial Residential Transition at the Periphery

This chapter compares the process of racial residential transition and patterns of interracial encounters in Glenville and the various neighbourhoods of Southeast Cleveland, finding differences mostly traceable to the white residents’ ethnic and class composition as well as the built environment. With most Jewish residents having left these areas, African Americans’ interactions with Roman Catholic Southern and Eastern Europeans took on greater significance. Aggressive real estate tactics seeking to promote rapid housing turnover became increasingly systematic and racial clashes (notably in the public schools) more common – including violent incidents which nevertheless remained on a low level overall, compared to Detroit and Chicago. Attempts at interracial neighbourhood mobilization continued, although the remaining white ethnics proved less receptive and demographic transition proceeded to the point where the population of these areas became overwhelmingly African American.

Inaugurating Neoliberal Crimmigration

This chapter examines the criminalization of Latin American immigrants and Latina/os in media, policy debates, and law, and in relation to the prison-industrial system. In 1980s films, romanticized Italian American mafia families contrasted media alarm—the continuation of the “immigrant emergency”—over unmarried Latino gangbangers in films and television shows. This was largely accomplished by portraying Latina/o family and gender arrangements as dysfunctional deviations from “family values.” In martial arts films, Asian men were cast as exotic and often family-less crime fighters, again occupying a place between Latin American immigrants and Latinas/os and white ethnics. Focusing on increased border control and punitive immigration law that targeted undocumented immigrants and functioned increasingly like criminal law, as well as on racialized tropes of immigrant criminals in media, this chapter asserts that racially disparate discourses of immigrants and crime produced, justified, and negotiated racist and sexist social relations for neoliberalizing America.

Goals and tactics of President Gerald Ford's ethnic politics

This article analyzes initiatives of Gerald Ford's presidential administration toward nationalities or the so-called white ethnics against the backdrop of the legacy of Richard Nixon and the Republican Party's ethnic politics of the 1960s. Using archival and interview materials, it demonstrates that Gerald Ford intended to improve the relationship between the President's office and the ethnics who were involved in the Republican Party's structures. He consciously tried to respond to ethnics' political concerns and even created a special position on his staff for working with the nationalities. While in office and during the election campaign of 1976, Ford succeeded in engaging the ethnics and in demonstrating his will to address their needs on the domestic “front.” He failed, however, to fully appreciate the importance of foreign policy to the nationalities. The article proposes that today, as in the 1970s, the American political establishment would benefit from recognizing international issues as crucial elements of white ethnics' or nationalities' political behavior.

Desigualdade de acesso entre diferentes etnias de pacientes com HIV/AIDS

Dentre os vários objetivos estabelecidos no presente estudo, este em questão se refere a análise de acessibilidade da população negra em comparação com a população branca quanto à prevenção, diagnóstico e tratamento do HIV/AIDS e DST. Abrangem soropositivos masculinos e femininos, de etnia negra e branca, maiores de 18 anos, acompanhados no serviço de HIV/AIDS na UNICAMP. Utiliza entrevista semiestruturada. Resultados indicam desigualdade social entre negros e brancos: menor acesso a escolaridade, a renda e acessibilidade aos serviços de saúde dificultada pelo diagnóstico tardio, realizado em grande parte via internação. Abstract: In this present study proposal, considered many aspects in the research, is to analysis of the afro American population accessibility, compared to the white population in terms of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS and STD’s. The research did include seropositive male and female, comparing patients of afro american and white ethnics, of 18 years age up, accompanied and the HIV/AIDS Service of this institution. In the research semi-structured interviews was utilised on afro american and white population with HIV/AIDS. The results showed social inequality between afro american and white population, including poor access to schoolhouse, low gross receipts and accessibility to health services, and in fact diagnosis are too late realized, and largely during the hospitalization.

Anticommunist White Ethnics in Search of True Americanness: Ideas and Alliances in the 1950s–1970s

This study explores the ways in which certain groups of white ethnics understood the idea of the un-American between the 1950s and the 1970s. Their definition of the un-American was determined by their perception of true Americanness, which in turn was connected to their anticommunist beliefs. Such an understanding of true Americanness helped these white ethnics build political alliances, particularly with the Republican Party. However, by the mid-1970s, the white anticommunist ethnics found themselves outside of the political mainstream, with anticommunism a heavy ideological burden to carry. The article is based on archival materials from presidential libraries and sources from within the ethnic communities themselves.