The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions [Paperback]

Race is a known fictionthere is no genetic marker that indicates someone's raceyet the social stigma of race endures. In the United States, ethnicity is often positioned as a counterweight to race, and we celebrate our various hyphenated-American identities. But Vilna Bashi Treitler argues that we do so at a high cost: ethnic thinking simply perpetuates an underlying racism.

InThe Ethnic Project, Bashi Treitler considers the ethnic history of the United States from the arrival of the English in North America through to the present day. Tracing the histories of immigrant and indigenous groupsIrish, Chinese, Italians, Jews, Native Americans, Mexicans, Afro-Caribbeans, and African Americansshe shows how each negotiates America's racial hierarchy, aiming to distance themselves from the bottom and align with the groups already at the top. But in pursuing these ethnic projects these groups implicitly accept and perpetuate a racial hierarchy, shoring up rather than dismantling race and racism. Ultimately,The Ethnic Projectshows how dangerous ethnic thinking can be in a society that has not let go of racial thinking.

Vilna Bashi Treitler masterfully weaves race and ethnicity into a single historical narrative that reveals the ugly reality of exploitation and stratification that has always undergirded American society. Treitler offers a succinct history and diagnosis of racial grouping in the U.S., from the nation's origin to the contemporary moment . . . The text has solid promise as an introductory ethnic studies course reading . . . Highly recommended. Americans believe strongly in their ethnicity and use it in self-promoting ways.The Ethnic Projectshows how destructive ethnic thinking can be in a society that has not let go of racism. With her ingenious concept of 'ethnic projects,' Vilna Bashi Treitler brings a new optic to the study of race. She shows that, despite their oppressionindeed,becauseof itminorities develop cl#7