Publication Type: Individual Presentation
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In 1913 W.E.B. Du Bois visited Los Angeles, and toured California. This visit, not only was recorded in Crisis Magazine, but has been used by historians for the past few decades to show that life in California, and in the West, for African Americans was far better other parts of the country. While Du Bois was relatively correct, there was a large part of the black community that went overlooked, because he focused solely on the black elite. The black working class, by 1913 was by far the most integrated and arguably, most interesting dimension of the larger black community. While some scholars of Black Los Angeles focus on Du Bois’s findings, many only consider either only the middle class or the working class after segregation was firmly established, rather than looking at the black community as a whole. More importantly, scholars have failed to include the Azusa Street Revival in the history of blacks in Los Angeles.
This paper makes note of great attempts to create a functioning, cohesive African American community in Los Angeles. It also suggests notions of class conflict, which manifests most significantly at the turn of the century during the Azusa Street Revival, a predominantly working class religious movement. The black working class responded to the influences of the middle class and elite sectors of their community by engaging in mass participation in this particular movement. The movement itself provides a good lens for which to study the largest component of the African American community in Los Angeles, the working class.
African American migrants were provided with certain opportunities otherwise closed in the south or northeast. They were also given a high degree of religious freedom that helped shape the Pentecostal movement which spread across America and throughout the world. No other part of the country provided a place for this kind of religious transformation as Los Angeles. Although much controversy surrounded the Revival, people traveled to the city from various parts of the country to experience Pentecost. Since the movement appealed to working class people, not only did Du Bois fail to investigate, but middle class Angelenos attempted to suppress the revival, especially by 1913 when Los Angeles was transforming into a major cosmopolitan city in the United States.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Incremental strategies can’t reverse labor’s decline. Even if AFL-CIO unions could double the number of workers organized per year it would take until 2036 to restore the union density of 1983. In the past labor has grown in explosive bursts; from 1934 to 1945 union membership quadrupled. Each period of upsurge re-defines what we mean by "the labor movement," changing cultural expectations, the form that unions take, laws, structures, and accepted forms of behavior. The upsurge gives rise to an integrated labor regime, fitted to the economy and society of that time, which constrains some forms of activity and promotes others. It has been 60 years since the last labor upsurge. New forms of struggle indicate the potential for a new period of explosive growth, one which will fundamentally change the structure of the labor movement and its relation to the rest of society. Even a period of mass movement provides no guarantees of such labor growth; labor missed the opportunity of the 1960s. But recent changes, in part in response to the New Voice leadership of John Sweeney, leave labor much better positioned to connect to movement struggles. Some indicators of that are already existing struggles around work-family issues, living wages, anti-sweatshop, global justice, and labor-community issues.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, we use cross national United Nations data to apply Portes and Hoffman’s (2003) macro-level model of class structure to studies of gender and development in Latin America to determine the relative change in women’s class position in comparison to men’s class position over time and across nations. These relative changes in turn shed light on the ways in which economic restructuring has affected gender inequality in Latin America. We see this work as a complement to the exceptional body of existing literature on women and development in case studies, and as a call for new macro level analyses that will further our theoretical and empirical understanding of the intersection between class and gender.
We first review the situation of women workers in Latin America, concentrating specifically on changes in women’s labor force participation during the past two decades of global economic restructuring. We then suggest how utilizing a class analysis could theoretically enhance our understanding of women’s changing position in the global economic system. While we acknowledge the past theoretical and empirical difficulties in integrating the two dynamic and interrelated systems of exploitation, we argue that the introduction of a peripheral society such as Latin America will bring new explanatory variables to the traditional debate about how to integrate class and gender structures.
Second, we test Portes and Hoffman’s (2003) model of class structure for gender differences by disaggregating their data by sex. We then extend this analysis with additional hypotheses regarding how men and women are distributed and rewarded throughout the social class structure in Latin America. The results make clear that bringing class to the study of gender inequality adds new dimensions to our understanding of economic, social and political developments in Latin America and throughout the world, and we take these results as a first step towards this research agenda.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper presents an argument for locating the phenomena of Islamic Revival among second generation Arab Muslims in Chicago at the intersection of the Arab American experience and globalization. It situates the resurgence of religiosity among them, a population often described as “immigrants” although they are not, as an outcome of their indigenous experience growing up in America. I argue that Global Islamic Revival must be understood for both its universal appeal and its particular causality. While the revival of religion among Muslim populations is often explained in reference to universal themes, and its Western form is often attributed simplistically to migratory movements, more research must be done to identify its local roots and appeal. That is, in each society in which increased religiosity among Muslims has occurred, local explanations for this process should be explored, in addition to the relative contributions of global networks and structures. In the case of the United States, I propose that the revival of Islam among second generation Arab American Muslims has more in common with African American conversions to Islam than with processes occurring in their immigrant parents' homelands. While the messengers of Islam may global in origin —immigrants, transnational relationships, and the internet — these vessels should not be viewed as causal. The appeal of Islam to Arab American Muslim youth and adults has evolved from discrimination and alienation they experience in the United States. As such, it is an American experience.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper deploys the trope of “camp” to discuss how church “performances” provide a space to express alternative forms of masculinity. While it is the church “sissy” who ordinarily “catches the spirit” in the church, the spirit nonetheless touches heterosexual male parishioners as well. My interest is in the way the spirit “moves” in straight black men and provokes them to express their possession in what would otherwise be thought of as “feminine” ways and thereby queering traditional black masculinity. Spirit possession also provides a space for gay parishioners to express and affirm their sexuality. The paper also seeks to critique theories on camp performance that register it as a white gay male phenomenon