The Lawyer Who Beat Back a Racist Law, One Loophole at a Time

Y.C. Hong Helped Chinese Immigrants Stay in America by Gaming a System Designed to Deport Them

Recent politics is full of debates about erecting walls on the U.S.-Mexican border or barring Muslims from entering the U.S. But excluding groups of immigrants based on a particular background is nothing new—though the targets may change. It was in 1882 that Congress, for the first time in the history of the United States, passed legislation to prevent a specific ethnic group from entering the country. In effect from 1882 to 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act forbade Chinese residents from naturalizing as U.S. citizens and forbade Chinese “laborers” from entering …

By Li Wei Yang | April 5, 2016

Atticus Finch Confronted What the South Couldn’t

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Recognized the Way White Southerners Face Harsh Truths. In Go Set a Watchman, She Did Not

By W. Ralph Eubanks | July 17, 2015

While there are many noble characters in the pantheon of Southern fiction, few have the iconic standing of Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch. Since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird …

Why I Won’t Wear War Paint and Feathers in a Movie Again

As a Navajo Actor, I’ve Learned Where Hollywood Likes to Stick Its “Indian” Roles—and Where to Find Real Native American Creativity Onscreen

by Brian Young | June 2, 2015

At some point, every Native American actor comes to a career crossroads and has to answer the question: Do I participate in stereotyping or maintain my cultural integrity?

As a …

Is the Atlanta Hawks’ Racial Quandary America’s Future?

The Central Question of the Coming Decades Is How Whites Will React to Becoming Minorities

by Gregory Rodriguez | September 17, 2014

It’s not surprising that the release of Atlanta Hawks co-owner Bruce Levenson’s racially provocative e-mail about his team’s fan base didn’t inspire the same level of public outrage as the …

Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Genealogy?

How Studying the Family Tree—Long the Province of Racists and Social Climbers—Became the Country’s Second Most Popular Hobby

by Gregory Rodriguez | May 12, 2014

Alex Haley, author of the hugely popular 1976 book Roots, once said that black Americans needed their own version of Plymouth Rock, a genesis story that didn’t begin—or end—at slavery. …

Donald Sterling Is Los Angeles

For 30 Years, the City Knew This Man Was a Racist. But Impunity Is Part of the Culture Here.

by Joe Mathews | May 1, 2014

Late in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Marsellus Wallace—a criminal boss played by Ving Rhames—banishes prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) from Southern California. “You lost all your L.A. privileges,” …

racism