Diversity: Strength and Struggle

by Joseph Calabrese

Part of the Longman Topic Series, this brief reader encourages an examination of diversity in America, in order to understand what both enriches and threatens the country’s core values “of liberty and justice for all.” This collection of readings provides opportunities for students to examine the impact “racial” and “ethnic” identity have on diverse groups, some of them challenging the notion of race as a meaningful category for thinking about human identity. Authors included in this collection write about the personal and political aspects of racial and ethnic identity in a variety of ways including describing experiences of exclusion, satirizing stereotyping, analyzing the sources of alienation, and arguing for changes that will ensure inclusion.

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2005

About the author

Joseph Calabrese is a freelance screenwriter. He was one of the winners at Slamdance Film Festival in 2004 for his religious thriller Second Coming and, as a result, has received interest from several producers. His action fantasy script The Eyes of Mara has recently been adapted into a graphic novel entitled Her Majesty's Bulldog Brigade, with art by Harsho Mohan Chattoraj and Brendan Keough, published by Chimaera Comics. The "Gunga Din" short comic is a spinoff from that project and features characters found in HMBB. Visit http://www.bulldogbrigade.com for more info on the project.

Reviews

[Marla O'Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Only grown-ups think that the things children say come out of nowhere. We know they come from the deepest parts of ourselves."

"But when these images are abstracted to fit the whole of a race or an ethnic group, people need to raise questions and challenge the results that lead to overgeneralization."

"Yet these days, questions such as who is an American and what is American culture are being posed with beligerance, and being answered with violence."