Fully updated and expanded, the fifth edition of Diversity in America offers a comparative, sociohistorical analysis of diversity in the United States. Drawing from the latest data and research and incorporating recent developments such as the Black Lives Matter movement, Parrillo gives a detailed and multifaceted portrait of intergroup relations.
Parrillo takes a chronological approach and uses intergenerational comparisons to highlight demographic shifts and changing perceptions of diversity within different periods of American history. The tensions between the processes of assimilation and pluralism are explored throughout with reference to debates surrounding immigration, the perceived threat of multiculturalism, and the fear of society losing its “American” identity. The original concept of the ‘Dillingham Flaw’ is deployed to explain false perceptions of immigrants. Further updates to the fifth edition include analytical commentary on the controversies surrounding Critical Race Theory and Great Replacement Theory; Affirmative Action, the rise of White supremacist groups; the political divide over asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants; and changing racial and religious demographics in an evolving multiracial America.
The book thus sheds light on the socially constructed myths about America’s past, misunderstandings about its present, and anxieties about its future. This accessible and engagingly written book will be of interest to students, academics, and general readers with an interest in the diversity, race, ethnicity and migrants in the United States.
1. Perception and Reality
2. Diversity in Indigenous America
3. Diversity in Colonial Times
4. Diversity in the Early National Period
5. Diversity in the Age of Expansion
6. Diversity in the Industrial Age
7. Diversity in the Information Age
8. Diversity in Today’s World
9. Intergenerational Comparisons
10. Is Multiculturalism a Threat?
11. The Next Horizon
Biography
Vincent N. Parrillo is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at William Paterson University, USA. An internationally recognized expert on immigration and Fulbright scholar, he has been Scholar-in-Residence at universities in Belgium, Czechia, and Italy, and has given keynote lectures at several international conferences. A past vice president of the Eastern Sociological Society, he was its Robin Williams Distinguished Lecturer in 2006. He is author of Strangers to These Shores: Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States (13th ed., 2024), Defenders of Freedom (2015), and Guardians of the Gate (2011), and co-author of Cities and Urban Life (8th ed., 2024) and Hearts and Minds: Hizmet Schools and Interethnic Relations (2022). He is also the general editor of the Encyclopedia of Social Problems (2 vols., 2008) and writer/executive producer of six award-winning PBS documentaries.
