Toward a More Perfect Union
in an Age of Diversity

RESOURCE LISTINGS:

Readings and Films for Further Discussion and Action

Catalogs/Periodicals

Guides/Curriculum

Articles/Reports

Books

Non-Fiction

Personal Accounts

Fiction

Films/Videos

Other Resources

Can you suggest additional resources for dealing with diversity issues,
either on the Internet or in the real world?

Please e-mail your suggestions to <icd@wwcd.org>, so we can include them in the AMPU Web site!

This is only a sampling of the many good resources available. Although this list is wide-ranging, it is far from comprehensive, and we apologize for the many omissions.

Catalogs/Periodicals

City Lore, The Culture Catalog, bi-annual mail order catalog. Books, videos, and audiotapes about America's many cultural groups, geared to children and adolescents. Also includes "how-to" books on oral history, folklore, storytelling and more. For free copy, contact City Lore, 72 E. First St., New York, NY 10003; 800/333-5982; fax 212/529-5062.

National Association of Human Rights Workers. The Journal of Intergroup Relations. Contact the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, 220 Parsons Ave, Columbus, Ohio 43215.

Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Poverty & Race, bi-monthly publication. No charge for newsletter, but donations encouraged. Contact PRRAC, 1711 Connecticut Ave. NW #207, Washington, DC 20009; 202/387-9887; fax 202/387-0764.

Southern Poverty Law Center, Teaching Tolerance, bi-annual publication. Articles, case studies and resources to help adults teach tolerance. Mailed at no charge to educators and groups exploring related issues. Contact Teaching Tolerance, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104; fax 334/264-3121.

Guides/Curriculum

American Library Association. The Nation That Works. A reading, viewing and discussion series about American pluralism and identity developed for public libraries. Inquire at your local library, or contact the American Library Association, Public Programs Office, 50 E. Huron St., Chicago, IL 60611; 312/280-5054.

American Social History Project. Who Built America?, a multimedia history project emphasizing the history of America's working people. Who Built America? text books and CD-Roms sold commercially. To inquire about films, classroom materials and faculty development programs, contact Edith DeGrammont, ASHP, 99 Hudson, 3rd Fl., NY NY 10013; 212/966-4248 x201.

Choices for the 21st Century Education Project, Brown University. A More Perfect Union: Shaping American Government. Curriculum resource unit sets the framing of the U.S. Constitution in context, and helps high school students find parallels today. Includes reproducible student text and teacher's resource book. Contact Choices, Box 1948, Providence, RI 02912; 401/863-3155; fax 401/863-1247.
WorldWideWeb: http://www.brown.edu/Research/Choices

DuPraw, Marcelle E. and Lester P. Schoene, Jr. Facing Racial and Cultural Conflict: Tools for Rebuilding Community. Strategies for handling inter-racial and cross-cultural conflict in your community. Contact the Program for Community Problem Solving, 915 15th St. NW, Suite 601, Washington, D.C. 20005; 202/783-2961; fax 202/347-2161.

National Endowment for the Humanities. Resource Kit for the National Conversation on American Pluralism and Identity. Developed to support community-based conversations about American pluralism and identity. Contents include founding documents, brief essays, conversation-starting questions and activities, and suggestions for readings and films. Organizing tips also included. Call NEH at 800/NEH-1121 to obtain free copy.

Public Affairs Television. Talking About Genesis: A Resource Guide. Introduction by Bill Moyers. New York: Doubleday, 1996.

Reese, Renford, Colorful Flags: Breaking Down Racial Mistrust. A human relations module aimed at breaking down communication barriers and fostering respect. Available from the Center for Multiethnic and Transnational Studies, University of Southern California, LA. 213/740-1068 (phone) or 213/740-5810 (fax).

Articles/Reports

Adams, Don and Arlene Goldbard. "Race and Redemption: Notes for a National Conversation," High Performance (Summer 1994).

Austin, Bobby William, ed. Repairing the Breach: Key Ways to Support Family Life, Reclaim Our Streets and Rebuild Civil Society in America's Communities. Report of the National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys. Dillon, CO: Alpine Guild, Inc., 1996. Contact the Alpine Guild; 800/869-9559.

Betances, Dr. Samuel. "Diversity Reading Clubs," Michigan Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, FOCUS (Spring 1994). Call or write WayneRESA, 33500 Van Born, Wayne, MI 48184; 313/467-1300 (Olga Moir).

Dory, Michelle Lebanon. Conflict and Culture: A Literature Review and Bibliography. University of Victoria, Institute for Dispute Resolution. Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 1992.

Institute for the Study of Civic Values. Building Community in the American Tradition. Contact the Institute for the Study of Civic Values, 1218 Chestnut St., #702, Philadelphia, PA 19107; 215/238-1434. edcivic@libertynet.org or http://libertynet.org/~edcivic/iscvhome.html.

Kretzmann, John P., and John L. McKnight. Building Communities from the Inside Out: A Path Towards Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets. Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1993. Contact ACTA Publishers, 800/397-2282.

Ladd, Everett Carll. The American Ideology: An Exploration of the Origins, Meaning, and Role of American Political Ideas. Storrs, CT: The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, 1994. Contact the Roper Center, 860/486-4440.

McCoy, Martha L., and Robert F. Sherman. "Bridging the Divides of Race and Ethnicity," National Civic Review (Spring-Summer 1994). Contact Study Circles Resource Center, P.O. Box 203, Rte. 169, Pomfret, CT 06258; 860/928-2616; fax 860/928-3713.

Myers, Sondra. "The Power of Conversation," The Key Reporter 60 (Autumn 1994). Contact the Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1811 Q Street NW, Washington, DC 20009; 202/265-3808.

National League of Cities Advisory Council. Diversity & Governance: Changing Populations and the Future of Cities and Towns. Washington DC: National League of Cities, 1991. Contact the National League of Cities, Publication Center, P.O. Box 491, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701; 301/725-4299; fax 301/206-9789.

Porter, Jeanne L. Building Diverse Communities. Charlottesville, VA: Pew Partnership for Civic Change, 1995. Contact Pew Partnership for Civic Change, 145-C Ednam Dr., Charlottesville, VA 22903; 804/971-2073; fax 804/971-7042; e-mail 71503.2400@compuserve.com

The Community Leadership Co. "How to Reach Across Racial and Economic Barriers," Community Leadership Quarterly 2, (no. 3). Contact The Community Leadership Co., P.O. Box 1687, Decatur, GA 30031-1687; 404/371-9534; fax 404/373-3804.

The National Conference. Taking America's Pulse: A Summary Report of The National Conference Survey On Inter-Group Relations. (April 1994) Contact The National Conference, 71 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003; 212/206-0006; fax 212/255-6177.

"Across the Racial Divide," The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, October 16-22, 1995. A series of articles by Richard Morin, Malcolm Gladwell, Kevin Merida. Includes a report by Mario A. Brossard, assistant director of Washington Post polling.

Books

Non-Fiction

Abramns, Bob and George F. Simon, eds. Cultural Diversity Sourcebook. Amherst: ODT, 1996. $50. Contact ODT; 800/736-1293.

Adams, Don and Arlene Goldbard, Crossroads: Reflections on Political Culture. Talmage, California: DNA Press, 1990. Available for $13.95 ppd from DNA Press, PO Box 30061, Seattle, WA 98103-2061.

American Social History Project. Freedom's Unfinished Revolution: An Inquiry into the Civil War and Reconstruction. New York: New Press, 1996.

Bork, Robert. Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw Hill Companies, 1997.

Carnegie, Andrew. The Gospel of Wealth and other Timely Essays. 1900. Edited by Edward C. Kirkland. Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press, 1962.

Cisneros, Henry. Interwoven Destinies: Cities and the Nation. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

CityKids Publishing Committee. CityKids Speak on Prejudice. New York: Random House, 1994.

Dalton, Harlon. Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear Between Blacks & Whites. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

Daws, Gavin. Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1968.

DeLoria, Vine, and Clifford M. Lytle. The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. New York: Pantheon, 1984.

Dougherty, Michael. To Steal a Kingdom: Probing Hawaiian History. Waimanalo, HI: Island Style Press, 1992.

Dresser, Noreen. Multicultural Manners. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996.

Foner, Eric, and John A. Garraty, eds. The Reader's Companion to American History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1991.

Gitlin, Todd, The Twilight of Common Dreams: Why America is Wracked by Culture Wars. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995.

Higham, John. Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1984.

Hughes, Robert. Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America. New York: Oxford, 1993.

Hunter, James Davidson. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic Books: 1991.

Kame'eleihiwa, Lilikala. Native Land and Foreign Desires: Pehea La E Pono Ai? Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1992.

Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: the History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality. New York: Vintage, 1977.

Kosmin, Barry A., and Seymour P. Lachman. One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society. New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1993.

Lantieri, Linda and Janet Patti, Waging Peace in Our Schools. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996.

Lappˆ©, Frances Moore and Paul Martin DuBois, The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc. Publishers, 1994.

Lederach, John Paul. Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Leone, Mark P., and Neil Asher Silberman, eds. Invisible America: Unearthing Our Hidden History. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1995.

Leong, Russell, ed. Moving the Image: Independent Asian Pacific American Media Arts. Los Angeles: The UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Visual Communications, 1991.

Limerick, Patricia. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1987.

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: New Press, 1995.

Maine Humanities Council, and Maine Council of Churches. What Does It Mean to Be An American? Portland, ME: Maine Humanities Council, 1995. Anthology of readings for use in community discussions. While supplies last, copies available for s&h charges only. Contact the Maine Humanities Council, 371 Cumberland Ave., Portland, ME 04112; 207/773-5051.

Morrison, Ann M. The New Leaders: Guidelines on Leadership Diversity in America. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1992.

Ravitch, Diane, ed. The American Reader: Words that Moved a Nation. New York: Harper Collins, 1990.

Ricks, Christopher, and William L. Vance. The Faber Book of America. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992.

Smith, Rex Allan. Moon of Popping Trees: The Tragedy at Wounded Knee and the End of the Indian Wars. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1975.

Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993.

___. Strangers From A Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1989.

Terkel, Studs, Race: How Blacks and Whites Feel about the American Obsession. New York: New Press, 1992.

Wiggins, James B., In Praise of Religious Diversity. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Zinn, Howard. Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology. New York: Harper Collins, 1990.

Personal Accounts

Colon, Jesus. A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches. 1961. Reprint. New York: International Publishers, 1982.

Frisch, Michael. Portraits in Steel. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1993.

Hampton, Henry, and Steve Fayer. Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.

Herr, Michael. Dispatches. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.

Leavitt, David. Family Dancing. New York: Warner Books, 1983.

Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1982.

Moody, Ann. Coming of Age in Mississippi. 1968. Reprint. New York: Dell Publishing, 1985.

Northrup, Solomon. Twelve Years A Slave. 1853. Edited by Sue Eakin and Joseph Logsdon. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1968.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez: An Autobiography. Boston: D.R. Godine, 1981.

Santiago, Esmeralda. When I was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage, 1993.

Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.

Fiction

Bell, Thomas. Out of This Furnace: A Novel of Immigrant Labor in America. 1941. Reprint. Pittsburgh: Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 1976.

Cahan, Abraham. The Rise of David Levinsky. 1917. Reprint. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 1952. Reprint. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1977.

Hagedorn, Jessica, ed. Charlie Chan is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. New York: Penguin, 1993.

Kingston, Maxine Hong. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage, 1975.

Lopez, Tiffany Ana, ed. Growing Up Chicana/o: An Anthology. New York: William Morrow, 1993.

McBride, James. Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to his White Mother. New York: Riverhead Books, 1996.

Minnesota Humanities Commission and Minnesota Council of Teachers of English. Braided Lives: An Anthology of Multicultural Writing. St. Paul: Minnesota Humanities Commission, 1991. For purchase, call 800/356-6826, Burgess Group.

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

Mukherjee, Bharati. Jasmine. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1989.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Viking Penguin, 1977.

Smedley, Agnes. Daughter of Earth. 1929. Reprint. Old Westbury, NY: Feminist Press, 1973.

Twain, Mark, and Charles Dudley Warner. The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. 1901. Reprint. New York: Meridian, 1994.

Yarnow, Harriet. The Dollmaker. New York: Avon Books, 1976.

Yezierska, Anzia. Bread Givers: A Struggle Between a Father of the Old World and a Daughter of the New. 1925. Reprint. New York: Persea Books, 1975.

Films/Videos

The following distributors, among others, offer a wide selection of interesting films and videos:

Before Stonewall: The Making of a Gay and Lesbian Community (1984) 87 min. Co-produced and directed by Greta Schiller. Distributed by the Cinema Guild, 212/246-5522.

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954 to 1965 (1986) 6 programs, 60 min. each, and Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965 to 1985 (1990) 8 programs, 60 min. each. Produced by Blackside, Inc. For purchase, contact PBS Video, 800/344-3337.

My America... or Honk If You Love Buddha (1997) 85 min. Produced and directed by Renee Tajima-Pena. Call 310/479-2040; email tajimapena@aol.com. An irreverant chronicle of the filmmaker's travels across the U.S. in search of Asian America.

The Ride (1996) 8 episodes, 28 min each. Produced and directed by Shauna Garr. Distributed by Select Media, 800/707-6334. A hard-driving documentary journey through the U.S. from a teenage point-of-view.

Secret Daughter (1996) 60 min. Produced and directed by June Cross. Frontline, WGBH, Boston. For purchase, contact PBS Video, 800-344-3337. An autobiographical documentary about the filmmaker's mixed race heritage.

Not in Our Town I (1995) 27 min. and Not in Our Town II (1996) 58 min. Produced and distributed by California Working Group, 5867 Ocean View Dr., Oakland, CA 94618; 510/547-8484; fax 510/547-8844; wedothework@igc.org http://www.igc.org/am/niot.html. Two documentaries shown on public TV that portray community efforts to combat intolerance and hate crimes. Produced as part of a nationwide campaign to end prejudice and stimulate citizen action. Teacher's Viewing Guides also available.

The Uprising of '34 (1995) 87 min. A film by George Stoney, Judith Helfand and Susanne Rostock. Distributed by First Run/Icarus, 212/727-1711. Documentary that recovers the history of the General Textile Strike of 1934, an important but little-discussed event in labor history.

Toward A More Perfect Union: An Invitation to Conversation (1996) 22 min. Video companion to this guide. When used with this guide, copies available from Study Circles Resource Center. To obtain the video only, call the Transit Media Film Library, 201/652-1989.
A related video is Talk to Me: Americans in Conversation. (1996) 60 min. Produced and directed by Andrea Simon, Arcadia Films. Distributed by the Cinema Guild, 1697 Broadway, #506, NY NY 10019; 212/246-5522. A freewheeling documentary journey exploring what it means to be an American as the 20th Century draws to a close.

Other Resources

Call the Library of Congress for copies of the Constitution of the United States in English and in 20 different foreign languages. Dan Zafren, Dir. of Legal Research, 202/707-4351.

Contact the Bureau of the Census for demographic information and educational materials to aid your discussions. The materials are often easy to use and are sent free of charge. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20233, 301/457-2422

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS?
Send e-mail to <icd@wwcd.org>, and we'll include them in the AMPU Web site

A More Perfect UnionSite NavigationStudy CirclesTalk To Me

| A More Perfect Union | Site Navigation | Study Circles | Talk To Me |

Please address comments on this Guide to Study Circles Resource Center
The AMPU Web site was produced by Arcadia Pictures in association with PBS Online®

© Copyright Topsfield Foundation and Marci Reaven 1997