Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1—The Path to the New Ethnicity
Chapter 2—“Is This Any Way For Nice Ethnic Boys to Behave?” The
Blue-Collar Origins of the New Ethnicity
Chapter 3—Instincts, Feelings, and Intimacies: The Intellectual
Consolidation of the New Ethnicity
Chapter 4—“I’m a Practical Guy Who Wants to Live in a City That
Gives People of All Kinds a Chance to Share”: The Struggle for the
Progressive New Ethnicity
Chapter 5—Consuming Roots: Popular Culture Representations of the
New Ethnicity
Chapter 6—“Let Them Do For Themselves Like We Do!”: The Right’s
Appropriation of the New Ethnicity
Conclusion—“Loose Cannons,” Reagan Democrats, and Legacies
Bibliography
Richard Moss is assistant professor of history at Harrisburg Area Community College, Harrisburg, PA.
The undoing of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society initiatives was
fulfilled by its success. In his examination of the “New Ethnic”
identity in urban New Jersey of the 1970s, historian Moss
(Harrisburg Area Community College) explains how activists among
the old core of the Democratic northeast, particularly the Irish
and Italian working class, exploited community anger and fear over
two factors. First, there was resentment in urban neighborhoods
over federal aid to black and Latino families integrating into the
local mainstream. Second, community activists asserted that
previous ethnic communities had not needed social services, and
invoked a mythic past of bootstrap self-reliance rather than
recognizing the privilege of being included as white in the postwar
US. The author describes the social and intellectual creation of
the northeastern “Reagan Democrats,” laying out the recent
political implications in the thread of social history pioneered by
David Roediger in Working toward Whiteness (CH, Apr'06, 43-4875)
and extended by Matthew Jacobsen’s Special Sorrows (CH, Sep'95,
33-0614) and Roots Too (CH, Jan'07, 44-2879). The eventual
acceptance of Reagan political conservatism and deregulation came
at a price paid in working-class economic stability, but one
willingly paid. “Racial and cultural antipathy was powerful enough
to turn white ethnics and workers from their [own] self-interest.”
A sophisticated but accessible work. Summing Up: Highly
recommended. All academic levels/libraries
*CHOICE*
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