Multiple Book Review: Four Perspectives on Human Natures: Genes,Cultures, and the Human Prospect. Paul R. Ehrlich. Washington,DC: Island Press, 2000, 531 pp.

Population and Environment -     

Gays, lesbians, and the media: a selected bibliography.

The focus of this selected bibliography is on print, aural, and visual resources dealing with gay males, lesbians, and the mass media. Listings were selected on the basis of their perceived value to scholarly researchers and interested members of the more general public. Individual news stories, reviews of specific films or television programs, and coverage of gay males and lesbians in the theatre and arts are not included. While references to popular music were sought, only a few items were located and are included. There were two major obstacles confronted when compiling this bibliography. First, much of the media of the gay and lesbian communities in the United States is not indexed. Second, very few libraries subscribe to many of the more popular and important print resources (e.g., Advocate, Gay Community News) on the topics of focus. Even more inaccessible are regional publications and literature that focus on erotica but often include valuable items on the gay and lesbian communities as well.     

Race,language, and social policy: Comparing the black and Hispanic experience in the U.S.

Recent studies project that most new U.S. workers by the year 2000 will be minorities, and warn that educational deficiencies among blacks and Hispanics may lead to a two-tiered society. Since the 1960s the U.S. government, prodded by a coalition of black and Hispanic rights organizations, has adopted a minority-discrimination model of equal opportunity that requires affirmative-action benefits for both protected groups to compensate for past discrimination. For Hispanics these programs have required separate, Spanish-language instruction in school.Since 1969, the availability of new survey data on ethnicity, family income, and Englishlanguage proficiency from the Census Bureau and the National Assessment for Educational Progress has permitted comparisons of social mobility by racial and ethnic groups. These studies show greater economic success among nonEnglish-speaking groups from Europe and Asia than among white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) groups, and they show similar upward mobility among Hispanics when proficiency in English is taken into account.These optimistic trends are tempered by the demands of the new global economy for high levels of literacy and numeracy in the knowledge-based industries of the future. In this job competition Asian-Americans, despite their language difficulties, have been most successful and blacks least successful. The political and ideological needs of black and Hispanic leaders have tied government policies to the minority-discrimination model and linked Hispanic remedies to Spanish-language programs, but the empirical data associate economic success with the acculturation model and English-language proficiency.     

Intertwined therapeutic mobilities: knowledge,plants, healers on the move between Laos and the U.S.

ABSTRACT

We investigate the notion of therapeutic mobilities through the case study of transnational health care practices and medicinal flows within the Hmong diaspora between Laos and the U.S. Drawing upon narratives of traditional healers, pickers, and plant sellers, as well as a collection of postal registers, we highlight how therapeutic mobilities follow the routes of migration and organize the practices of healing among Hmong in receiving countries, particularly in the U.S. Through the different and multidirectional aspects of therapeutic mobilities, we illustrate how transnational healing touches upon questions of cultural identity within the Hmong diaspora. Therapeutic mobilities not only involve border-crossing, they also strengthen existing bonds within the Hmong diaspora. Similarly, herbal treatments not only achieve a therapeutic function, they also represent a range of meanings and values for patients. We explore the fabric of therapeutic mobilities through the prism of translocality and medical pluralism.     

Book Review: Eugenics: A Reassessment. Richard Lynn. Westport,CT: Praeger, 2001, 367 pp. (hardbound), $85.00

Population and Environment -     

Book Review: The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture. Peter H. Kahn,Jr. Cambridge,MA: The MIT Press, 1999. Hardbound, 252 pages including appendices

Population and Environment -     

Book Review Guns,Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Jared Diamond. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997, 480 pp.

Population and Environment -     

Book Review: Inuit,Whaling, and Sustainability. Milton M.R. Freeman,Lyudmila Bogoslavskaya,Richard A. Caulfied,Ingmar Egede,Igor J. Krupnik,and Marc. G. Stevenson. Walnut Creek,CA: Altamira Press, 1998. 208 p. $25.00 (hard cover), $24.95 (paperback)

Population and Environment -     

White Residential Segregation in U.S. Metropolitan Areas: Conceptual Issues, Patterns, and Trends from the U.S. Census, 1980 to 2010

Racial and ethnic diversity continues to spread to communities across the United States. Rather than focus on the residential patterns of specific minority or immigrant groups, this study examines changing patterns of White residential segregation in metropolitan America. Using data from the 1980 to 2010 decennial censuses, we calculate levels of White segregation using two common measures, analyze the effect of defining the White population in different ways, and, drawing upon the group threat theoretical perspective, we examine the metropolitan correlates of White segregation. We find that White segregation from others declined significantly from 1980 to 2010, regardless of the measure of segregation or the White population used. However, we find some evidence consistent with the group threat perspective, as White dissimilarity is higher in metro areas that are more diverse, and especially those with larger Black populations. Nevertheless, our findings indicate that Whites having been living in increasingly integrated neighborhoods over the last few decades, suggesting some easing of the historical color line.