A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America Paperback – December 8, 2008

I first read this in college as an assigned reading but I really liked it. I do love history books but I've never cared much about American history. To be honest once we're not talking about ancient Native Americans I tend to lose all interest. However, this book is one of the few books that doesn't bore me on the subject. Part of that being that it's not another history from the traditional standpoint book. It's not whitewashing anything and tells us about the many horrific things we've actually done in the country to ethnic minorities and Native peoples. Most books talking about Americanhistory tend to minimize and downplay these elements, acknowledging them only minimally.I don't know why but for whatever reason I sold this book after I was done with course and regreted doing so for many years later. I finally decided to just buy myself another copy. One of the few things I didn't like about the book was how pretty much every minority was covered except Arabs/Muslims. In the new copy I noticed that it now includes a section on Afghanistan and Afghan refugees towards the end. This is a step closer to bridging that gap in that it does talk about Muslims and 9/11 minimally but I still feel that it lacks Arab/Muslim trials and suffering in the earlier sections of the book. Many Arabs and Muslims have been part of the US for hundreds of years even though it wasn't till the 1880s that they started coming in larger waves. The Irish who came at a similar time got plenty of space in the book but Arabs/Muslims in America are left out for the most part once again from the historical narrative and left only as a modern day newcomer... once again distanced and part of the continuing problem of seeing them as not really Americans and having no shared background in America or American identity.

Ronald Takaki is an Emeritus Professor at the University of California. He is a major writer in the field of Ethnic Studies . A Different Mirror is 445 pages of rather small text, so doing more than hinting at its contents is impossible.Before reading A Different Mirror I saw our nation’s history as the story of the advance of civilization. “Civilization” being the version of civilization that was developed in England and passed on through our Declaration of Independence and Constitution and the culture of freedom surrounding it. Now I have an awareness of the equal contribution of other streams some already here, and some also from across the seas. And I am deeply aware of the suffering of these peoples in this process.Takaki starts with the Irish. The English began thumping on them first when as England and Ireland they were neighbors. With ample help from the English the Irish were impoverished. To escape starvation they boarded the boats, came over here, to do the work of the bestial, stupid, filthy underclass. From that point they built themselves into powerful, knowledgeable and wealthy members of the white system. From my childhood to my adulthood the Irish in my family did not stop being a competitive minority under-class until Jack Kennedy became president. On that day we arrived as members of the white power structure.While the Irish are described well in Takaki’s history, their fellow whites less so., For instance the Swedes are served not at all, nor the Germans, nor the French, , and just a dab at the Italians This is not a complaint. Even a big book has limits.After the Irish story comes the tragic tale of the stealing of Indian land. The removal of whole native peoples en mass from the lands they had possessed for generations. This attempt at genocide was based on two very disputable “facts.” First the Indians were ignorant savages, and second, they did not need the land since they were not farming it. Until the 1970s we made the practice of Native American religion a crime, destroying their culture .Takaki covers the story of the Blacks from slavery to Martin Luther King and close to today. No surprises there if you are following the copious coverage of that history in the media, but he squeezes a lot of African American history into these pages. I realized my own narrowness in thinking of racial history as being a Black and White story. Not at all. It is much broader and much worse than that.The battle of the Alamo looks much less heroic when I realize that it occurred well within the boundaries of Mexico. (A 2017 joke: The Mexicans will pay for a wall on the border if we give them back California.) The Mexicans did not have to migrate to the United States. We moved the lines, and then they were in the United States, but without property rights, in a foreign culture, vulnerable and victimized.The Chinese arrived to build the railroads from West to East, as the Irish were building them from East to West. Tough work. Single men came first and families later. The Chinese were being pressured by the spreading British Empire on their East to cross the seas and join and collide with the same culture in our WestThe Japanese are followed from their arrival in fruitless pursuit of gold (hills of it they had heard) through World War Two where while young male Japanese Americans were grudgingly allowed to fight on the European front, their families were interned in what can only be called prison camps to prevent any possible seditious activity. (None of which ever appeared.)In Different Mirrors I first discovered that President Roosevelt turned back to certain death in Germany a ship full of Jews trying to escape Hitler. Worse, he did it because the polls showed that ninety percent of United States citizens wanted him to do precisely that.What I gained from this book is a deep and specific sense of the terrible cost those other than the founders have paid for a seat at the American table.Does your picture of how we all got here need tuning as badly as mine? Ronald Takaki is a compelling storyteller. Because of that this is about as easy a lesson as anyone can make it.

In great condition!! Like new

If you think you understand American culture today, think again. Professor Takaki's thorough research into the history of immigration in America, from the first arrival of Europeans to today, is an essential body of work. He never comes right out and says them, but inescapable truths emerge. From the beginning, America has used a race-based immigration policy to divide the working class in order to keep labor cheap. He never comes out and says it, but that is my take-away from this book. Maybe yours will be different. But if you think you have Muslim bans and border crises all figured out. read this book with an open mind, and see where you come out at the end. This book is meticulously researched, well-documented, and beautifully written. It's a must read for those of you who want to think of yourselves as informed citizens, even if you are not a history major.Sean O'Brien

Ordered this for a school assignment and it was not damaged and arrived in good condition!

Satisfactory

Livre très intéressant. Ronald Takaki nous donne une vision moderne des Etats Unis à travers les épisodes historiques de chaque groupe racial et par la même occasion justifie de manière précise et détaillée le multiculturalisme américain. Je le recommande vivement!