Research Catalog

Facing up to the American dream : race, class, and the soul of the nation / Jennifer L. Hochschild.

Title: Facing up to the American dream : race, class, and the soul of the nation / Jennifer L. Hochschild.
Author: Hochschild, Jennifer L., 1950-
Publication: Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, ©1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Filter by

2 Items

Item details
Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Request in advance	E185.615 .H55 1995	Off-site
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Request in advance	E185.615 .H55 1995	Off-site

Details

Description

xx, 412 pages : illustrations; 25 cm.

Summary

Hochschild combines survey data and vivid anecdote to clarify several paradoxes. Since the 1960s, white Americans have seen African Americans as having better and better chances to achieve the dream. At the same time middle-class blacks, by now one-third of the African American population, have become increasingly frustrated personally and anxious about the progress of their race. Most poor blacks, however, cling with astonishing strength to the notion that they and their families can succeed despite their terrible, perhaps worsening, living conditions. Meanwhile, a tiny number of the estranged poor, who have completely given up on the American dream or any other faith, threaten the social fabric of the black community and the very lives of their fellow blacks. Will the still optimistic majority of poor African Americans eventually follow the alienated minority into neighborhood and even society-wide destruction? Does the new black middle class vindicate the American dream, or does the frustration of its members make apparent the limits of a vision never intended to include African Americans? Hochschild probes these questions, and gives them historical depth by comparing the experience of today's African Americans to that of white ethnic immigrants at the turn of the century. She concludes by claiming that America's only alternative to the social disaster of intensified racial conflict lies in the inclusiveness, optimism, discipline, and high-mindedness of the American dream at its best.

Series Statement

Princeton studies in American politics

Uniform Title

Princeton studies in American politics

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 341-397) and index.

Processing Action (note)

committed to retain

Contents

What is the American dream? -- Rich and poor African Americans -- "What's all the fuss about?": Blacks' and Whites' beliefs about the American dream -- "Succeeding more" and "under the spell": affluent and poor Blacks' beliefs about the American dream -- Beliefs about one's own life -- Beliefs about others -- Competitive success and collective well-being -- Remaining under the spell -- With one part of themselves they actually believe -- Distorting the dream -- Breaking the spell -- The perversity of race and fluidity of values -- Comparing Blacks and White immigrants -- The future of the American dream.

ISBN

0691029571
9780691029573

LCCN

^^^95013061^

OCLC

32236503
SCSB-10162796

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library