Stanford M. Lyman

The Race Question and Liberalism: Casuistries in American Constitutional Law

In 1989, a highly placed figure in the United States Department of State put forward the thesis that history (in the Hegelian sense of that term) had come to an end. To Francis Fukuyama, deputy director of the State Department’s policy planning staff and a former analyst for the RAND Corporation, the tide of recent events – for example, the proclaimed end of the Cold War, a burgeoning economic union in Western Europe, the pending reunification of Germany and the latter’s incorporation into NATO, the deconstruction of communist states in Eastern Europe, President Gorbachev’s proposals in behalf of “glasnost” and “perestroika” in the Soviet Union, a potential collapse of the USSR’s political economy, and the possibility that that state’s republican structure would disintegrate – served as incontrovertible evidence of the “triumph of the West, of the Western idea.”

History and Sociology: Some Unresolved Epistemological Issues*

Conceivably, there are four different angles from which the history of this outlying province of Spain and Mexico might be presented. Ordinarily, the historical student will be disposed to follow the activities and the development of the political power ... On the other hand, the story may be told by the missionary . . . Again, there is the point of view of the Mexican-Spanish settlers . . . Lastly, one might imagine an instructive account written from the standpoint of the unfortunate In? dians . . . Frederick J. Teggart2

Animal faith, puritanism, and the Schutz-Gurwitsch debate: A commentary*

The happy accident of scheduling Professors Vaitkuss and Kassabs excellent papers serially and on the same program has inspired me to bring their themes together and to put forward an interpretation that connects Santayanas philosophy to the Pragmatic and Protestant traditions in American sociology and therewith to offer a diachronic resolution to the Schutz-Gurwitsch debate. Before I begin, however, I should like to describe my background and qualifications for making such a commentary. I joined the department of sociology in The Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science at the New School for Social Research in 1972, replacing Schutzs former student, Peter Berger, who had resigned and taken a position at Rutgers University. I had already introduced a graduate seminar on Schutzs phenomenological sociology at the University of Nevada in 1970, and I continued to teach and write in that and the related Pragmatic perspec? tive while at the New School. In addition, together with Arthur Vidich (Vidich and Lyman, 1985), I began an exploration of the religious ethics affecting the spirit of American sociology. The existential and phenomenological sociology in which I have collaborated with Marvin Scott became both a resource for and a topic of the researches undertaken with Professor Vidich. All of this came together for me in a new way because of this occasion and the originality of Professors Vaitkuss and Kassabs separate studies.

The Chinese Before the Courts: Ethnoracial Construction and Marginalization

ConclusionJustice Fields decision inHo Ah Kow v. Nunan, like the Supreme Courts decision seven years later inYick Wo v. Hopkins,45 stands out in the otherwise dreary history of Chinese litigants seeking equitable justice in the courts of the United States.46 Although the addition of “person” to the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitutions Fourteenth Amendment provided the basis for a great many Chinese aliens to seek redress for the violation of their personal and property rights,47 the denial of citizenship, affirmed inAh Yup and remaining in force until 1943, stood as a bar to their integration into the American political community and civil society. Until 1943, when the right to naturalization was granted to Chinese aliens as part of a gesture to Americas Kuomintang ally in the war against Japan, immigrant Chinese were officially marginalized in Americas invidious hierarchy of races. They all too often were made to bear the burden of a juridical interpretation that had originated in the joint and separate employment of a conjectural ethnohistory, a dubious and contradictory ethnology, and, with rare and occasional exception, the judiciarys failure to discover and evaluate the real intent of the classificatory schemas that had begun to stigmatize them when they were first designated as generic “Indians” or as equally generic “blacks”. Like blacks, Chinese had been tarred with what Justice Harlan insisted wasthe badge of slavery: race discrimination. But, unlike blacks, Chinese had not been emancipated in 1865.48

Dramas, Narratives, and the Postmodern Challenge

Schutz’s remarks on the “Sociological Aspect of Literature” provides the occasion for reconsidering the dramaturgical approach to the study of society. By combining the Burkean dramatistic pentad with Schutz’s conceptualizations of the intersubjective relations that prevail in actor/audience encounters, and, at the same time, historicizing the Schutz-Gurwitsch debate over the character and quality of Umwelten, it is possible to resolve certain dilemmas posed by recent postmodernist thinkers and to open social sciences to a humane and egalitarian approach to the investigation and understanding of the “Other.“

The Lost Tribes of Israel as a Problem in History and Sociology

In what follows I present a sociological interpretation of the mythohistorical legend of the Lost Tribes of Israel. Ten of the original 12 tribes that comprised the ancient Hebrew people disappeared from conventional history and other secular annals sometime immediately before and shortly thereafter 721 B.C.E., when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians and its people sent into exile. Sacred histories and biblical prophecies hold that the 10 Lost Tribes will be reunited with their tribal brethren descended from the Southern Kingdom of Judea just before, or as a signal of, the coming messianic age. A quest for the descendants of the lost tribes has been begun many times, usually associated with the resolution of immediate, local, secular, or sacred issues that emerged in a particular era and at a particular place. Various peoples (e.g., the Falasha of Ethiopia, the Lemba of Zimbabwe, the Pachucans of Mexico, various tribes of the American Indians, the imperial family of Japan, and the British Israelites) have proclaimed themselves to be, or have been designated as, the saving remnants of the lost tribes. I have carried out this investigation of an allegedly scattered peoplehood within aspects of the emerging but still inchoate tradition of postmodernist social science.1 Every aspect of the history—and the very existence—of the ten tribes of Israel is fraught with existential controversy and epistemological conundrums. The fatefulness of the original tribal monarchical confederation—the society of ancient Hebrews inhabiting the Northern Kingdom of Israel—is largely dependent on religious sources and a few other ancient documents whose accuracy is disputed and whose usefulness for social scientific research remains a topic of intense debate.2 As J. Maxwell Miller observes, “Given the uncertainties that arise from the biblical story, the paucity of references to Israel or Israelites in extrabiblical docu

Postmodernism and the construction of ethnocultural identity: The Jewish‐Indian theory and the lost tribes of Israel

Ten of the original 12 tribes that comprised the ancient Hebrew people disappeared from conventional history and other secular annals in 722 B.C.E., when the Northern Kingdom of Israel was overrun by the Assyrians and its people sent into exile. However, sacred histories and biblical prophecies held that the 10 Lost Tribes would be reunited with their tribal brethren descended from the Southern Kingdom of Judea in the coming messianic age. A quest for the descendants of the lost tribes has begun many times, usually associated with the resolution of immediate, local, secular, or sacred issues that emerged in a particular era and at a particular place. Various peoples (e.g., the Falasha of Ethiopia, the Lemba of Zimbabwe, the Pachucans of Mexico, the imperial family of Japan, the British Israelites) have proclaimed themselves to be, or have been designated as, the saving remnants of the lost tribes. Among these are the aborigines of Ecuador, Florida, western Georgia, and New England, each group of which has...

Ethnic Studies as Multi-Discipline and Phenomenology

Ethnic Studies is a type of academic program that includes a multiplicity of cultural disciplines (education, ethnology, history, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, etc.). The history of the integrationist (or assimilationist) and the pluralist (or multi-cultural) conceptions of race and ethnic relations chiefly in the United States is examined first and then the attempt is made to show how research within and philosophical reflection upon this multi-discipline can be phenomenological.

Robert E. Park reconsidered: The early writings

Despite Robert E. Park’s prominence in American sociology, his early writings (before 1913) have been neglected. This article argues that Park’s early writings illustrate an important transitional phase in twentieth-century sociological thought. As sociology moved out of German romantic philosophy and toward rationalism and positivism, it had to come to terms with the existence of evil in the world. Park’s essays on the Congo formulated a more complex perspective on modernity’s modes of evil. Along with the Congo essays, Park’s Black Belt studies form a comprehensive portrait of the double-sided moral character and socioeconomic effects of the Reformation. Park’s early writings adumbrate a Gothic sociology of horror, in which the civilizational process erodes the many folk cultures that it draws into its basic forms—civil society and urban life.

The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring.

Preface Part I: Introduction 1. The Political Economy of Capitalist Restructuring and the New Asian Immigration Paul Ong, Edna Bonacich, and Lucie Cheng Part II: Immigration Patterns Introduction Lucie Cheng 2. U.S. Immigration Policies and Asian Migration Paul Ong and John M. Liu 3. Pacific Rim Development and the Duality of Post-1965 Asian Immigration to the United States John M. Liu and Lucie Cheng 4. Asian Immigrants in Los Angles: Diversity and Division Paul Ong and Tania Azores Part III: Economic Incorporation Introduction Paul Ong 5. Asians in the Los Angeles Garment Industry Edna Bonacich 6. The Migration and Incorporation of Filipino Nurses Paul Ong and Tania Azores 7. Chinese-Vietnamese Entrepreneurs in California Steve Gold Part IV: Political Struggles Introduction Yen Espiritu 8. The New Chinese Immigration and the Rise of Asian American Politics in Monterey Park, California Leland T. Saito and John Horton 9. The Korean-Black Conflict and the State Paul Ong, Kye Young Part, and Yasmin Tong 10. Class Constraints on Racial Solidarity among Asian Americans Yen Espiritu and Paul Ong Conclusion Edna Bonacich, Paul Ong, and Lucie Cheng About the Editors and Contributors