Thoughts on my Research

Yesterday, I attempted to start writing again toward my dissertation literature review. Having tackled most of the classical literature in assimilation and immigrant incorporation theory, I am now turning to the recent literature in Critical Whiteness Studies. For me, and others who study race and issues of immigrant-origin communities, the connection here is that implicit within the theories of assimilation is a process of whitening. As immigrants assimilate, the become (more like) white. This presumption is also predicated on the understanding of race as a social construction. As immigrants assimilate, US society reconstructs race to include these newcomers into whiteness. Now, any one who knows me should realize that what follows is going to be something of a diatribe against this idea...and so it will be. This is what I wrote yesterday. Thoughts and insights are appreciated as it is a work in progress.

The statement: "race is a social construct," is an important truth. However, it seems that some scholars within the social sciences and elsewhere have stretched this truth beyond its analytical usefulness. To state that race is a social construct is not to say that is a meaningless cultural fiction, nor does it mean racial lines are easily moved, erased, or even blurred. To speak of social construction is to acknowledge the lack of foundation in biologically based hierarchies, but also to take seriously that such construction does not occur within a vacuum of unlimited space. The social construction of race occurs within the confines of innumerable and simultaneous social constraints, including those created, entrenched, and reified by the construction of race itself. The concept of social construction portends a boundless freedom to construct and deconstruct social concepts and norms. However, with the multiple and complicated nexuses of equally social constraints, it turns out that "freedom is a tiny place."*

*This quote is actually from Prof. Carter Butts, stated in a seminar in the Fall of 2008...not sure if I really need to cite this...thoughts?