Learning Never Stops!

The book Up Against Whiteness: Race, School and Immigrant Youth was published in 2005. The book is basically about the teachers and faculty at University Heights High School in Lakeview, Wisconsin, and “the role that the school plays in shaping immigrant (Hmong) and second-generation students’ identities and their responses to life in the United States.”

Throughout the book, Professor Lee examines the disengagement between the traditional (Hmong) and Americanized (Hmong) students. Also, she examines the differing viewpoint of both the “mainstream teachers” and ESL teachers, regarding the Hmong and other minority students at the school.

This is an enlightening book that is extremely well written and, I would say, thoroughly documented and, on the whole, a very convincing portrayal of what it is like to be a minority (Hmong) student at University Heights High School.

No doubt this book (Up Against Whiteness: Race, School and Immigrant Youth) is a marvelous accomplishment for Professor Lee, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. What has impressed me the most is the way in which she achieved an objective treatment. Furthermore, there is hardly a page in which her treatment of the subject does not have the clarity, force, and fairness that comes from the fact that she places events in the context of historical perspective. In other words, she begins the book by giving an historical perspective on race relations in the United States that started with the Chinese and other minority groups during the early 1800s.

In summary, in reading this book, I was able to form a clear, well-balanced idea of the students, teachers, and faculty at University Heights High School. That being said, I would have to say that all in all, this is the most readable, fair, informative, and generally useful resource for students of ethnic history and an important reading for anyone interested in the history of race relations in America.

Rating: 3 / 5