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Ethnicities
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`Is yellow black or white?'

Inter-minority relations and the prospects for cross-racial coalitions between Laotians and African Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area

Bindi Shah

Roehampton University, UK, b.shah{at}roehampton.ac.uk

Given recent demographic shifts and changes in the racial landscape of many urban areas, what kind of inter-group relations have emerged and what are the prospects for cross-racial coalitions to contest racial hierarchies and structures of racial inequality in the USA? Drawing on qualitative data, I examine the efforts of an environmental justice organization, defined as a `border space', to build solidarity and forge alliances between second-generation Laotians and other communities of color in the San Francisco Bay Area. I argue that the possibilities and limits to engendering cross-racial solidarity are also shaped by Laotians' status as new immigrants and as Asian Pacific Americans, as well as by everyday encounters and interactions between racial groups. Racializing processes in the US engender complex inter-minority relations that are marked by cooperation or conflict. In such a context, cross-racial alliances are based on political commitments and shared interests that are contingent and situationally specific.

Key Words: cross-race coalitions • inter-group relations • political mobilization • positionality • racial hierarchy • second-generation Laotians • social geography of race • USA

Ethnicities, Vol. 8, No. 4, 463-491 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1468796808097074
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