Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.

Quantity: 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
43 used & new from $2.91

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Tell a Friend
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs
 
 
Are You an Author or Publisher?
Find out how to publish your own Kindle Books
 
  
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs (Hardcover)
by David R. Roediger (Author)
  4.8 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews (6 customer reviews)  

List Price: $26.95
Price: $26.95 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Monday, May 19? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. See details

Also Available in: List Price: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (Bargain Price) 16 used & new from $9.10
 
   

Better Together

Buy this book with When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson today!

Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America
Buy Together Today: $37.12

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Revised and Expanded Edition (Haymarket)

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class, Revised and Expanded Edition (Haymarket) by David R. Roediger

3.5 out of 5 stars (4)  $13.37
Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race by Matthew Frye Jacobson

4.8 out of 5 stars (8)  $21.00
How the Irish Became White

How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev

2.7 out of 5 stars (29)  $17.79
Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America

Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America by Matthew Frye Jacobson

5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  $19.95
Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States

Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

3.9 out of 5 stars (9)  $24.26
Explore similar items : Books (50)

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Too much recent scholarship "simply ignores the long, circuitous process by which 'new immigrants' became 'white ethnics,' " declares Roediger (The Wages of Whiteness), finding that the process in the early 20th century was slower and messier. Well-detailed examples include Greeks and Italians victimized by white mobs at the turn of the century (with the Chicago papers providing the parenthetical identification "Italian" in crime stories just as they did "Negro"). Jobs, Roediger finds, were often divided on lines that separated whites from European immigrants, but unions opened to European immigrants more readily than to blacks, Mexican-Americans and Asian-Americans. Most significantly, he sees the oppression faced by Europeans as qualitatively different than that faced by other groups and goes into painful detail. Roediger hearkens back to the 1924 immigration restrictions, showing how they drove the "great migration" of African-Americans northward, thus rendering immigrants less "foreign" to some entrenched whites. Reinforcing that were the immigrant drive for home ownership, backed by New Deal–era restrictive racial covenants and laws against interracial marriage. While slow going, Roediger's book tills some major historical ground. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
When immigrants from southern and eastern Europe arrived in America, their status was somewhere below that of "native" white Americans but above that of blacks and other nonwhites. In the period 1890 to 1945, social upheavals in labor, housing, and politics shifted and allowed these immigrants to take on the mantle of whiteness. Roediger explores the social forces that elevated the social status of these immigrants and contributed to deepening racial divisions. This ethnic focus is really deemed by Roediger as part of race history in the U.S., how people were placed within an evolving intellectual and social structure. Roediger focuses on the early twentieth century, when these new immigrants lived an in-between existence as their white consciousness took form. Segregated housing practices, and labor unions favoring the immigrants over blacks, helped to solidify the whiteness status. U.S. policy, notably the New Deal, also helped to confirm the inclusion of people who had formerly suffered the low social status of unassimilated immigrants. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details
  • Hardcover: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books (May 31, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0465070736
  • ISBN-13: 978-0465070732
  • Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars 6 customer reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #495,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
    (Publishers and authors: Improve Your Sales)
  • Also Available in: Hardcover (Bargain Price) |  All Editions

  •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? (We'll ask you to sign in so we can get back to you)


What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs
77% buy
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Become White. The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs 4.8 out of 5 stars (6)
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs
23% buy
Working Toward Whiteness: How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs
$12.89

Tags Customers Associate with This Product (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below.
(1)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
Help others find this product - tag it for Amazon search
No one has tagged this product for Amazon search yet. Why not be the first to suggest a search for which it should appear?