JoAnna Boudreaux's Online Portfolio
Preface
Preface
This book was written to reimagine how we teach and understand the history of race and ethnicity in the United States. Too often, textbooks present migration as a linear story of “waves” arriving at Ellis Island, as if people only became visible when recognized by the state. In reality, the making of America is a story of displacement, migration, and struggle for belonging. The story of America is one that begins long before the first ships crossed the Atlantic and continues into the present.
The chapters that follow are organized not by geography alone but by relationship: by how communities entered into, resisted, and reshaped the social order of the United States. The story begins with Indigenous nations whose sovereignty predates the nation itself, then moves through European colonization, slavery, and the racial foundations of American identity. It traces the evolution of “whiteness” as both an idea and a legal concept. The story expands outward across borders and into every region of the world.
Deciding how to organize this book was one of the most challenging and revealing parts of the writing process. Many race and ethnicity textbooks are arranged around U.S. Census categories: Black/African American, Asian American, Hispanic or Latino, Native American, and White. But those categories are political inventions, not natural truths. I wanted this book to reflect the historical and relational processes that produced them. For that reason, the chapters are not arranged by census label, but by when peoples and empires met, collided, and redefined one another...
Islam and Motherhood
Summary
From the Publisher:
"This book documents a qualitative project exploring U.S. American Muslim mothers' communicative experiences of identity. This investigation was undertaken by a Muslim woman researcher and insider to the research topic and founded on the premise that discussions of motherhood within the mainstream Muslim community do not center on the perspectives and lived experiences of actual mothers. Findings of this study are based on interviews with nine Muslim women who shared detailed thoughts about what Islamic scripture says about motherhood, the role of culture, rights and obligations of different family members, and details about their day-to-day lives. Data was critically analyzed, and themes were identified within the context of Hecht's Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) framework. Overall, the analysis indicated that women's communal identities as Muslims inform their relationships with their children, their husbands, their community, and shape their relational, enacted, and personal maternal identities. This study showcases the usefulness and flexibility of CTI in examining identity and holds significant implications for understanding the relationship between ideology, identity, and personal agency. This research also contributes to studies on motherhood and U.S. American Muslim women. This text is suitable for courses in communication theory, religious communication, women and gender, and U.S. American Muslim Studies"--