Product Description

Laura Pulido traces the roots of third world radicalism in Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s in this accessible, wonderfully illustrated comparative study. Focusing on the Black Panther Party, El Centro de Acción Social y Autonomo (CASA), and East Wind, a Japanese American collective, she explores how these African American, Chicana/o, and Japanese American groups sought to realize their ideas about race and class, gender relations, and multiracial alliances. Based on thorough research as well as extensive interviews, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left explores the differences and similarities between these organizations, the strengths and weaknesses of the third world left as a whole, and the ways that differential racialization led to distinct forms of radical politics. Pulido provides a masterly, nuanced analysis of complex political events, organizations, and experiences. She gives special prominence to multiracial activism and includes an engaging account of where the activists are today, together with a consideration of the implications for contemporary social justice organizing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #202683 in Books
• Published on: 2006-01-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 361 pages

From the Inside Flap
"Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left is unique. No other work deals in such detail with the complex relationships between racial nationalism and the radical left during the 1960's. A powerful and resonant achievement. Highly recommended!"--Howard Winant, author of The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since World War II

"Laura Pulido has written an invaluable study of the development of the multiracial Third World Left in southern California. She engages black, brown, and yellow radical activisms together, demonstrating how each vision differed but contributed to a movement that was ultimately more than the sum of its parts. Pulido's powerful excavation of the Third World Left's historical past provides reasons to hope for a more just, antiracist left future."--Lisa Lowe, author of Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics

" We so greatly needed this panorama of information and analysis. Finally we have an author putting the pieces together with commitment, enthusiasm and a view to the future."--Elizabeth (Betita) Martínez, activist and author of 500 Years of Chicano History/500 Años del Pueblo Chicano

About the Author
Laura Pulido is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Program in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Environmentalism and Economic Justice: Two Chicano Struggles in the Southwest (1996).

Customer Reviews

Don't Study Los Angeles Without It
While there are many books that purport to explain Los Angeles to their audiences, there are very few that succeed in balancing complex analytical work with solid, on-the-ground oral history from the region during this important period. Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left is one such book.

For those who live in Los Angeles, it is no secret that race plays an important, yet complex and often contradictory role in shaping the city. It is clear that Pulido has taken pains not only to keep this truth squarely in front of her throughout the book's well-crafted narration, but to do so without much of the hip jargon, opaque theorizing, and self-indulgent navel-gazing that typifies so much academic work in the social sciences and humanities these days. Pulido is the kind of careful and quietly brilliant scholar that seems in such short supply these days: one who has not forgotten that scholarly writing should strive, at once, for clarity and rigor.

Neither too erudite in its analysis or too simlistic in its formulations and explanations, Laura Pulido has written a book with something for virtually everyone. Whether it be urban or labor history, ethnic or american studies, leftist politics or gender studies, Black, Brown, Yellow, and Left is that rare book that has the potential to become a classic in several fields.

If you're looking for a book that will either simply valorize or condemn the 1960s radical left, then you will be better off seeking out one of the many self-absorbed polemicists that emerged from that period. But if it is meticulous scholarship and balanced assessment you are looking for, then look no further. It's time to make some room on your bookshelf next to Carey McWilliams, Reyner Banham, Kevin Starr, and Mike Davis.