The Shifting Grounds of Race

rdf:langString The Shifting Grounds of Race

rdf:langString The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles

rdf:langString The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles

rdf:langString Scott Kurashige

rdf:langString Cover of the first edition

rdf:langString United States

rdf:langString English

rdf:langString Print

rdf:langString The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles is a nonfiction book by Scott Kurashige, published in 2008 by Princeton University Press. It discusses interactions between African Americans and Japanese Americans in the Los Angeles area from the 1920s through the 1990s. Kurashige argued that the distinct civil rights' movements of both the African-Americans and the Japanese Americans in Los Angeles were affected by the "shifting grounds of race"; aspects of their movements overlapped but they used distinct methods and strategies. On many occasions members of the two ethnic groups lived in proximity to one another. Japanese people focused on business as they were unable to participate in politics, since they were not U.S. citizens. African-Americans, who were U.S. citizens, were able to participate in politics while having less footing in the business world. The focus on black-Japanese relations is distinct from the usual tendency of race-related nonfiction works to focus on white-black relations. Kurashige emphasized the presence of "triangular relations" among blacks, Japanese, and the politically dominant white political center. David O. Sears of the University of California, Los Angeles wrote that the book is a part of a "second wave" of scholarship discussing 20th century race and ethnicity-related effects on cities in the northern-influenced United States.