Ethnicity and Race as Resource Mobilization in American Community Civic Life and Participation: Traditional and Emerging Concerns

Abstract

As pressing issues of growing importance in American civic life and participation, ethnicity and race as sources of mobilization in communities and resource mobilization in ethnic and racial communities are some of the most fascinating though least understood topics in American social sciences and in western social sciences in general. Even though we have rich bodies of literature on American civic participation, on ethnic and racial issues, and on ethnic and racial communities, rarely does such literature adequately intertwine. Thus, we continue to have an American civic participation literature that largely speaks in terms of generality focusing on the white, usually middle-class, citizenry, with some, but much less, attention paid to immigrants, with only marginal or otherwise in passing attention paid to the civic participation traditions, values, and strategies of citizens and immigrants of color (Putnam, 2001).