Undermining Race: Ethnic Identity in Arizona Copper Camps, 1880- 1920
Status
Faculty
School
School of Liberal Arts
Department
Multi
Document Type
Book
Publication Date
2009
Publication / Conference / Sponsorship
University of Arizona Press
Description/Abstract
Undermining Racerewrites the history of race, immigration, and labor in the copper industry in Arizona. The book focuses on the case of Italian immigrants in their relationships with Anglo, Mexican, and Spanish miners (and at times with blacks, Asian Americans, and Native Americans), requiring a reinterpretation of the way race was formed and figured across place and time.Phylis Martinelli argues that the case of Italians in Arizona provides insight into "in between" racial and ethnic categories, demonstrating that the categorizing of Italians varied from camp to camp depending on local conditions-such as management practices in structuring labor markets and workers' housing, and the choices made by immigrants in forging communities of language and mutual support. Italians-even light-skinned northern Italians-were not considered completely "white" in Arizona at this historical moment, yet neither were they consistently racialized as non-white, and tactics used to control them ranged from micro to macro level violence.To make her argument, Martinelli looks closely at two "white camps" in Globe and Bisbee and at the Mexican camp of Clifton-Morenci. Comparing and contrasting the placement of Italians in these three camps shows how the usual binary system of race relations became complicated, which in turn affected the existing race-based labor hierarchy, especially during strikes. The book provides additional case studies to argue that the biracial stratification system in the United States was in fact triracial at times. According to Martinelli, this system determined the nature of the associations among laborers as well as the way Americans came to construct "whiteness."
ISBN
978-0-8165-3303-9
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology
Original Citation
Martinelli, Phylis. 2009. Undermining Race: Ethnic Identity in Arizona Copper Camps, 1880- 1920. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. 978-0-8165-3303-9
Repository Citation
Martinelli, Phyllis Cancilla. Undermining Race: Ethnic Identity in Arizona Copper Camps, 1880- 1920 (2009). University of Arizona Press. [book]. https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/school-liberal-arts-faculty-works/917
Comments
SMC Holding: https://stmarys-ca.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat00080a&AN=stmc.b318330&site=eds-live