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Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor
The inequalities that persist in America have deep historical roots. Evelyn Nakano Glenn untangles this complex history in a unique comparative regional study from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of World War II. During this era the country experienced enormous social and economic changes with the abolition of slavery, rapid territorial expansion, and massive immigration, and struggled over the meaning of free labor and the essence of citizenship as people who previously had been excluded sought the promise of economic freedom and full political rights.
After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.
After a lucid overview of the concepts of the free worker and the independent citizen at the national level, Glenn vividly details how race and gender issues framed the struggle over labor and citizenship rights at the local level between blacks and whites in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Asians and haoles (the white planter class) in Hawaii. She illuminates the complex interplay of local and national forces in American society and provides a dynamic view of how labor and citizenship were defined, enforced, and contested in a formative era for white-nonwhite relations in America.
320 pages, Paperback
First published June 17, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 27, 2024
wanna think of a word less cheesy than "foundational", but it's the best descriptor i have. it does such a phenomenal job at laying out the function and origins of race in america as a gendered labor phenomenon with a basis in colonization
April 21, 2022
Glenn ties together race and gender in the shaping of American citizenship, labor, and history helping explain how we got to where we are today in their 2004 book Unequal Freedom. The book centers on two major social structures and their shaping of U.S. citizenship and labor, unequal race and unequal gender relations. Citizenship allowed the creation of boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, while labor allowed for economic independence and autonomy, access to goods and services, and standards of living. Working through the Reconstruction years of the 1870s to the Progressive Years of the 1930s Glenn examines relations between dominant and subordinate groups in three regions: African Americans in the South, Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans in the Southwest, and Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in Hawaii. Glenn has excellent timing writing Unequal Freedom, as the 1980s and 90s provided an abundance of ripe literature on localized gender, activism, community building, and other forms of agency allowing for the larger picture to be drawn. In doing so, Glenn has used Omi and Winant’s concept of rearticulation - investing already present ideas and knowledge with new interpretations and meanings.
In the first three chapters Glenn analyzes the intersection of race and gender, as well as setting the framework for citizenship and labors roles in society. As Glenn explains, race and gender are not predetermined but are the products of society’s actions and those of our actions as individuals in a specific historical context. Glenn reviews civil, political, and social citizenship, and what it means to practice citizenship and be labeled as a citizen. Further, Glenn characterizes citizenship as a dichotomy, a public-private sphere governed by share law, and an independent-dependent sphere, the ideal as citizenship is not dependent on government laws. As presented, historically this leaves most people out of citizenship including the poor, women, the enslaved, Native Americans, and other racial or ethnic minorities. As we often find throughout history, liberalizing policies to be more accepting only took place during periods of major upheavals, and were nearly always followed by periods of regression. Glenn uses chapters four through six to present, analyze, and compare Black and white in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Japanese and Haoles in Hawaii.
As Glenn describes, the experiences of each group consisted of many similarities to how laws were interpreted and enforced, from both federal and local, and differences to the ability to exercise their citizenship rights. At the most basic level of citizenship is the sense of belonging and community, and as you read Unequal Freedom you find that many racial and ethnic minority groups, and immigrants, formed their own communities and created their own sense of belonging on the local level. As described in chapter four, Glenn explains that the Black woman was not considered a “true woman”, and that as African Americans were systematically removed from enfranchisement that they also lost citizenship rights of land ownership, and thus access to social mobility. Glenn gives readers an analytical look at public versus private spheres as well as contested spaces and calls for more analysis of hidden discourses.
Chapter five centers on Mexicans and the Southwest, and the controversy of voting and allowance of being identified as “white” legally, but not-quite-white locally. Complicating citizenship in the Southwest, racial designation of Mexicans differed at local, state, and federal levels. Separate labor opportunities, as well as separate wage scales put Anglo men at the top of the Southwest hierarchy, then Anglo women, then Mexican men, and finally Mexican women were at the bottom of both of those scales. While U.S. labor laws were ignored by landowners of the Southwest, Texas continued to pass and enforce their own emigrant labor agency laws. Mexican social, civil, and institutional segregation was as pervasive in the Southwest just as it was in the South between African Americans and whites.
In chapter six Glenn reveals that Japanese immigrants were denied citizenship through the questioning of the allegiance to the United States. Still, American landowners and businesses wanted Japanese laborers, often housing groups they perceived as the same together allowing the continuation of language and cultural practices. This ultimately led to a larger resistance and community building among Japanese laborers and immigrants, to the formation of schools for their children, to the unification of workers to strike against plantation owners. Japanese women were viewed as defiant workers, as they were more likely to be literate than other immigrant women, and were more often employed as domestic servants while they continued their studies. Japanese women also participated in strikes, and their demands were part of general strike demands including one of the earliest documented strike demands of maternity leave in 1909. While Japanese laborers and immigrants were cut off from civic participation, they continued to “vote with their feet” (220) as Glenn states, moving to better plantations and circumstances.
As groups were enfranchised, the ballot and labor gave a person public standing, respect and recognition as a full person and as a full member of society. Glenn untangles a complex history and our country's deep historical roots in defining race and gender. While the author’s regional approach allows for certain comparative analysis to take place and how the groups were able to utilize different channels to citizenship and economic freedom, it does still leave out other distinct immigrant populations with little to no mention of the eastern ports or northern borders. Still, using a combination of sociological journals, archival sources, legal documents, and other historical texts, Glenn leaves readers more informed, giving readers a comprehensive presentation of how race shaped the United States socioeconomic history and labor.
In the first three chapters Glenn analyzes the intersection of race and gender, as well as setting the framework for citizenship and labors roles in society. As Glenn explains, race and gender are not predetermined but are the products of society’s actions and those of our actions as individuals in a specific historical context. Glenn reviews civil, political, and social citizenship, and what it means to practice citizenship and be labeled as a citizen. Further, Glenn characterizes citizenship as a dichotomy, a public-private sphere governed by share law, and an independent-dependent sphere, the ideal as citizenship is not dependent on government laws. As presented, historically this leaves most people out of citizenship including the poor, women, the enslaved, Native Americans, and other racial or ethnic minorities. As we often find throughout history, liberalizing policies to be more accepting only took place during periods of major upheavals, and were nearly always followed by periods of regression. Glenn uses chapters four through six to present, analyze, and compare Black and white in the South, Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest, and Japanese and Haoles in Hawaii.
As Glenn describes, the experiences of each group consisted of many similarities to how laws were interpreted and enforced, from both federal and local, and differences to the ability to exercise their citizenship rights. At the most basic level of citizenship is the sense of belonging and community, and as you read Unequal Freedom you find that many racial and ethnic minority groups, and immigrants, formed their own communities and created their own sense of belonging on the local level. As described in chapter four, Glenn explains that the Black woman was not considered a “true woman”, and that as African Americans were systematically removed from enfranchisement that they also lost citizenship rights of land ownership, and thus access to social mobility. Glenn gives readers an analytical look at public versus private spheres as well as contested spaces and calls for more analysis of hidden discourses.
Chapter five centers on Mexicans and the Southwest, and the controversy of voting and allowance of being identified as “white” legally, but not-quite-white locally. Complicating citizenship in the Southwest, racial designation of Mexicans differed at local, state, and federal levels. Separate labor opportunities, as well as separate wage scales put Anglo men at the top of the Southwest hierarchy, then Anglo women, then Mexican men, and finally Mexican women were at the bottom of both of those scales. While U.S. labor laws were ignored by landowners of the Southwest, Texas continued to pass and enforce their own emigrant labor agency laws. Mexican social, civil, and institutional segregation was as pervasive in the Southwest just as it was in the South between African Americans and whites.
In chapter six Glenn reveals that Japanese immigrants were denied citizenship through the questioning of the allegiance to the United States. Still, American landowners and businesses wanted Japanese laborers, often housing groups they perceived as the same together allowing the continuation of language and cultural practices. This ultimately led to a larger resistance and community building among Japanese laborers and immigrants, to the formation of schools for their children, to the unification of workers to strike against plantation owners. Japanese women were viewed as defiant workers, as they were more likely to be literate than other immigrant women, and were more often employed as domestic servants while they continued their studies. Japanese women also participated in strikes, and their demands were part of general strike demands including one of the earliest documented strike demands of maternity leave in 1909. While Japanese laborers and immigrants were cut off from civic participation, they continued to “vote with their feet” (220) as Glenn states, moving to better plantations and circumstances.
As groups were enfranchised, the ballot and labor gave a person public standing, respect and recognition as a full person and as a full member of society. Glenn untangles a complex history and our country's deep historical roots in defining race and gender. While the author’s regional approach allows for certain comparative analysis to take place and how the groups were able to utilize different channels to citizenship and economic freedom, it does still leave out other distinct immigrant populations with little to no mention of the eastern ports or northern borders. Still, using a combination of sociological journals, archival sources, legal documents, and other historical texts, Glenn leaves readers more informed, giving readers a comprehensive presentation of how race shaped the United States socioeconomic history and labor.
September 15, 2022
4.5. Really very good book. Discussed how race was formed in three different regions as a tool to organize labor but that it’s also fundamentally tied to gender. Really fascinating case studies.
October 4, 2008
This book is subtitled "How Race & Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor." This book contains a masterful synthesis of the relationship among Race, Gender, Citizenship (particularly substantive citizenship) and Labor. The first three chapters build the conceptual framework for the book. The next three chapters offer a series of regional case studies examining the local particularities of how race, gender, and labor shaped substantive citizenship. Chapter 4 is entitled "Blacks and Whites in the South", Chapter 5 is entitled "Mexicans and Anglos in the Southwest" and Chapter 6 is entitled "Japanese and Haoles in Hawaii." The studies all end by the 1930s. This is a book I would assign in an advanced undergraduate seminar or for a first year graduate seminar. It covers a lot of ground in a crystal clear way (but probably covers too much grounds in too general a way for a freshman or sophomore seminar).
October 27, 2015
This book has sponsored a lot of thought on my part about the history of labor in the United States and why Americans work so dang much compared to Europeans. Glenn talked about how Americans are still influenced to work long hours by the American dream (that is, the ability to work hard and improve your social class). We all want to improve life for ourselves and our children, and we work those long hours to do it. Compared to the European model that did not have the hope of ever changing their social class (because they were in monarchratic system with set social class).
April 4, 2010
Pretty good - discusses the "racialization" and "engendering" (and their overlaps) of citizenship and labor in three separate places in the US.
August 3, 2023
great synthesis, and i think it would work well in an undergrad course.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews