People of Color in the United States: Contemporary Issues in Education, Work, Communities, Health, and Immigration. Edited by Kofi Lomotey, Pamela Braboy Jackson, Muna Adem, Paulina X. Ruf, Valire Carr Copeland, Alvaro Huerta, Norma Iglesias-Prieto, and Donathan L. Brown. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2016. 4 vols. Acid free $319.20 (ISBN 978-1-6106-9854-2). E-book available (978-1-6106-9855-9), call for pricing.
People of Color in the United States: Contemporary Issues in Education, Work, Communities, Health, and Immigration is composed of four separately titled and individually edited volumes that follow a common organizing pattern for sale as a set: Education: K–12 and Higher Education (volume 1), Employment, Housing, Family, and Community (volume 2), Health and Wellness (volume 3), and Immigration and Migration (volume 4). Each volume opens with a listing of its contents. These consist of a “Guide to Related Topics,” a “Preface,” an “Introduction,” “Essays” listed by title in alphabetical order, “Perspectives and Debate” (many of which pose a question that offers a pro and con response), “Recommended Resources,” “About the Editors and Contributors,” and a comprehensive “Index” to all four volumes.
The number of essays in each volume varies (47 in volume 1, 60 in volume 2, 56 in volume 3, 50 in volume 4) but each follows a uniform format. Essay titles are highlighted in bold face with sections and subsections set apart for easy identification. Each essay offers a “Conclusion” and a listing of “Further Readings.” The latter includes recently published books, journal articles, dissertations, and web sites with date of access noted. Many essays are illustrated with black and white photographs or contain sidebars, tables, or charts with additional information. See also references to additional related topics are included and each article is signed by its author, either an academic or a graduate student, whose credentials are listed at the back of the volume in which it appears.
Articles focus on contemporary issues that affect people of color disproportionately, such as “Culturally Relevant Education” (1:68–74), “Social Media Activism against Racial Inequality” (2:305–12), “Health across Diverse Communities of Color” (3:149–59), and “Pathways to Citizenship” (4:259-–7). Some topics, food deserts for example, are written about in more than one volume (“Food Deserts in Communities,” 2:139–43; “Food Deserts and Health,” 3:135–39). What time frame constitutes “contemporary” is not precisely stated, but articles appear largely to consider currency to date from the mid-1960s onward. Historical information is limited to amplifying, clarifying, or contextualizing a contemporary issue (“Guest Worker Programs,” 4:156–61; “Resegregation of Schools,” 1:301–7).
Nor does People of Color in the United States offer a clear unifying statement tying the set together as to who qualifies for inclusion as a person of color. Some essays explore the intersection between race and ethnicity (“Same-Sex Marriage and Race and Ethnicity,” 2:291–99). Others focus entirely on ethnicity (“The Latino Health Paradox: Examining the Mexican American Experience,” 3:202–9). Biracial and multiracial identity are addressed (“Multiracial Americans: Categories and Perceptions,” 2:234–38; “Multiracial Identity in the United States Today,” 2:238–44). Pigmentation may also be a consideration (“Colorism,” 2:70–75; “Brazilians in the United States,” 4:49, 52–53). Arabs, classified as white by the 1997 Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) revisions on race and ethnicity (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/handbook/data/pdf/Appendix_A.pdf), are included in one article (“Parent and Family Engagement in Education: Arab American Families,” 1:233–34). but Arab American is not an indexed term.
What emerges is that most of the contemporary issues articles in these volumes address their impact on African American, Latino/a and Hispanic, and Native American communities. Inclusion of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is highly selective. Populations from the Indian subcontinent are not included at all. Readers looking for basic information about these and other populations that fall outside the OMB’s definition of white will need to turn to the four-volume Multicultural America: An Encyclopedia of the Newest Americans, edited by Ronald H. Bayor and also published by Greenwood in 2011, or to the third edition of The Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America, edited by Thomas Riggs (Gale, Cengage Learning, 2014; Credo Reference, 2016). The former profiles populations arriving in the United States since passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, many of whom fall into OMB’s non-white groups; the latter emphasizes culture, customs, language, religion, historical background, settlement in the United States, and assimilation of immigrant and Native American tribal groups without regard to OMB classification. Unlike People of Color in the United States, neither of the aforementioned multicultural encyclopedias approaches their subjects through the lens of a specific issue or issues affecting one or multiple populations, opting instead for the traditional A–Z alphabetical-by-name organization pattern.
While one may quibble about a certain lack of clarity in defining what groups are considered to be persons of color, it is clear that People of Color in the United States provides a unique approach that shines a spotlight on contemporary issues affecting populations arguably among the most marginalized in the United States. Interest in the issues and populations addressed in the set’s four volumes may be expected to grow; a second edition may soon be necessary. People of Color in the United States is recommended for high school, public, and academic library readership.—Sally Moffitt, Reference Librarian and Bibliographer, Langsam Library, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio