This book introduces the study of ethnic women and contributes to our understanding of the relationships among gender, race/ethnicity, and social class. The social scientific study of gender has grown exponentially for more than two decades. Until recently, however, little attention has been paid to the diversity among women. The social scientific literature on ethnicity has experienced a revival in the same decades, yet women have frequently been overlooked or misrepresented in that literature. When ethnic women do appear they are typically depicted as selfless wives and mothers or passive victims. Theses twenty original essays challenge myths and stereotypes. The authors--social scientists, social service professionals, and other scholars--explore a broad range of racial/ethnic and social class circumstances. Communities represented include the Hmong in Wisconsin, Cuban Jews in Florida, and Samoans in Hawaii. Patters of immigration and social mobility, communal institutions, and maintenance of ethnic traditions are among the topics which reflect the multiple status reality of ethnic women.

A long-awaited addition to the literature, this important new volume comprehensively addresses mental health issues relevant to women of color and presents guidelines for state-of-the-art treatment. Chapters illustrate the interaction of gender and ethnicity in mental health theory and practice, and discuss how cultural relevance and gender sensitivity can and must be incorporated into clinical work. The contributors are experts with extensive clinical experience with the specific groups of women they discuss, and many are themselves members of these groups, adding a unique and valuable dimension to their work. Inclusive in its approach and rich with illustrative case examples, WOMEN OF COLOR covers issues that affect both familiar and frequently overlooked groups of women. Emphasizing the heterogeneity of women of color, the book begins with in-depth discussions of cultural imperatives relevant to the mental health treatment of African American, American Indian, Asian American, Latina/Hispanic, and East and West Indian women. The second section provides a thorough review of the major theoretical orientations to psychotherapy and their applicability to women of color. The contributors critically assess the utilization of psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, family systems, feminist, and integrative approaches, and provide clinical guidelines for the application of each. Focusing on clinical management that incorporates a sensitivity to ethnicity, culture and gender, chapters also discuss the psychopharmacologic treatment of women of color. The diversity that exists among women of color is reflected in the final section's thoughtful examination of the mental health needs of such special populations as professional women, lesbians, mixed-race women, battered women, and refugee women. The stressors endured by women who are culturally stigmatized and/or institutionally disadvantaged are explored, and clear guidelines for working with these women are presented. Filling a significant gap in the literature, WOMEN OF COLOR is a major new resource for all mental health professionals, from students to seasoned practitioners. Accessibly written, it also serves as an excellent classroom text for courses in the psychology of women, women's studies, and gender studies.

While great strides have been made in documenting discrimination against women in America, our awareness of discrimination is due in large part to the efforts of a feminist movement dominated by middle-class white women, and is skewed to their experiences. Yet discrimination against racial ethnic women is in fact dramatically different--more complex and more widespread--and without a window into the lives of racial ethnic women our understanding of the full extent of discrimination against all women in America will be woefully inadequate. Now, in this illuminating volume, Karen Anderson offers the first book to examine the lives of women in the three main ethnic groups in the United States--Native American, Mexican American, and African American women--revealing the many ways in which these groups have suffered oppression, and the profound effects it has had on their lives. Here is a thought-provoking examination of the history of racial ethnic women, one which provides not only insight into their lives, but also a broader perception of the history, politics, and culture of the United States. For instance, Anderson examines the clash between Native American tribes and the U.S. government (particularly in the plains and in the West) and shows how the forced acculturation of Indian women caused the abandonment of traditional cultural values and roles (in many tribes, women held positions of power which they had to relinquish), subordination to and economic dependence on their husbands, and the loss of meaningful authority over their children. Ultimately, Indian women were forced into the labor market, the extended family was destroyed, and tribes were dispersed from the reservation and into the mainstream--all of which dramatically altered the woman's place in white society and within their own tribes. The book examines Mexican-American women, revealing that since U.S. job recruiters in Mexico have historically focused mostly on low-wage male workers, Mexicans have constituted a disproportionate number of the illegals entering the states, placing them in a highly vulnerable position. And even though Mexican-American women have in many instances achieved a measure of economic success, in their families they are still subject to constraints on their social and political autonomy at the hands of their husbands. And finally, Anderson cites a wealth of evidence to demonstrate that, in the years since World War II, African-American women have experienced dramatic changes in their social positions and political roles, and that the migration to large urban areas in the North simply heightened the conflict between homemaker and breadwinner already thrust upon them. Changing Woman provides the first history of women within each racial ethnic group, tracing the meager progress they have made right up to the present. Indeed, Anderson concludes that while white middle-class women have made strides toward liberation from male domination, women of color have not yet found, in feminism, any political remedy to their problems.

There is a continuing need for critical scholarship about ethnic 'Other' girls and women in sport and physical culture, in order to represent their complex, multifarious and dynamic lived realities. This international collection of critical essays provides compelling insight into the lived realities of ethnic 'Other' females in sport.

Considering new perspectives on writers such as Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Louise Erdrich, Confronting Visuality in Multi-ethnic Women's Writing traces a cross-cultural tradition in which contemporary female writers situate images of women within larger contexts of visuality.

Though often unnoticed by scholars of literature and history, Polish American women have for decades been fighting back against the patriarchy they encountered in America and the patriarchy that followed them from Poland. Through close readings of several Polish American and Polish Canadian novels and short stories published over the last seven decades, Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction traces the evolution of this struggle and women’s efforts to construct gendered and classed ethnicity. Focusing predominantly on work by North American born and immigrant authors that represents the Polish American Catholic tradition, Grażyna J. Kozaczka puts texts in conversation with other American ethnic literatures. She positions ethnic gender construction and performance at an intersection of social class, race, and sex. She explores the marginalization of ethnic female characters in terms of migration studies, theories of whiteness, and the history of feminist discourse. Writing the Polish American Woman in Postwar Ethnic Fiction tells the complex story of how Polish American women writers have shown a strong awareness of their oppression and sought empowerment through resistive and transgressive behaviors.