The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles

by Scott Kurashige

Overview

Los Angeles has attracted intense attention as a "world city" characterized by multiculturalism and globalization. Yet, little is known about the historical transformation of a place whose leaders proudly proclaimed themselves white supremacists less than a century ago. In The Shifting Grounds of Race, Scott Kurashige highlights the role African Americans and Japanese Americans played in the social and political struggles that remade twentieth-century Los Angeles.


Linking paradigmatic events like Japanese American internment and the Black civil rights movement, Kurashige transcends the usual "black/white" dichotomy to explore the multiethnic dimensions of segregation and integration. Racism and sprawl shaped the dominant image of Los Angeles as a "white city." But they simultaneously fostered a shared oppositional consciousness among Black and Japanese Americans living as neighbors within diverse urban communities.


Kurashige demonstrates why African Americans and Japanese Americans joined forces in the battle against discrimination and why the trajectories of the two groups diverged. Connecting local developments to national and international concerns, he reveals how critical shifts in postwar politics were shaped by a multiracial discourse that promoted the acceptance of Japanese Americans as a "model minority" while binding African Americans to the social ills underlying the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Multicultural Los Angeles ultimately encompassed both the new prosperity arising from transpacific commerce and the enduring problem of race and class divisions.


This extraordinarily ambitious book adds new depth and complexity to our understanding of the "urban crisis" and offers a window into America's multiethnic future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691146188
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2010
Series:	Politics and Society in Modern America , #71
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Scott Kurashige is associate professor of history, American culture, and Asian/Pacific Islander American studies at the University of Michigan.

Read an Excerpt

The Shifting Grounds of Race Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles

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By Scott Kurashige Princeton University Press
Copyright © 2008 Princeton University Press
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-12639-5

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Introduction In the middle of 1943, Arthur Miley, an aide to Los Angeles County supervisor John Anson Ford, declared, "From all I heard it appears that Little Tokyo is going to be one big headache." Conditions of squalor in the congested, segregated neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles alarmed public officials, social workers, and ethnic community leaders. Large families routinely occupied storefronts, warehouses, and churches never intended for human habitation. With others living in shacks, garages, and sheds, Miley warned that "permanent occupancy" in such facilities "would lead to juvenile and moral delinquency." Inspectors from the city health department discovered one family living in an apartment so small that a set of twins was forced to sleep in dresser drawers. They later found a family of nine inhabiting one room with a five-foot ceiling and no windows. Fears of a public health catastrophe mounted. The chair of the Little Tokyo Committee of the Council of Social Agencies reported, "Garbage is scattered about and the rats are taking over." Los Angeles mayor Fletcher Bowron vowed to eliminate the neighborhood's "deplorable overcrowding of as many as 16 adults and children in one room and extremely serious disease hazards." Demanding more than "patchworkremedies," the Communist Party's local branch called for "the adoption and enforcement of a public policy" that would "make 'Little Tokyos' impossible." Arthur Miley concluded that officials needed to take action "immediately on a large scale" or risk subjecting the city "to disease, epidemics, race riots and a general breaking down of the home front in this area." But while public officials employed racially loaded language to characterize Little Tokyo, its residents at this time were not Japanese. Following the removal of Japanese Americans from Los Angeles during the early months of World War II, the ethnic enclave had shifted from being the center of the "Japanese problem" to serving as ground zero for the "Negro problem." In May 1944, the Los Angeles Times declared that both residential and commercial structures formerly occupied by Japanese Americans were "now overflowing with thousands of Negro families from the Deep South."

The wartime transformation of Little Tokyo into a community that African American entrepreneurs and community leaders dubbed Bronzeville most literally exemplifies the intersection of Black and Japanese American histories in twentieth-century Los Angeles. That African Americans would reside in a space previously carved out by Japanese Americans was no coincidence. Because the city's white elites were preoccupied with building a business-friendly "open shop" town by subduing white labor unions, both Black and Japanese American pioneers arriving before the First World War had initially seen Los Angeles as a site of relative freedom and opportunity. As they simultaneously faced exclusion from segregated white neighborhoods, members of both groups lived in the same geographic niches during the first half of the twentieth century. Although the federal government allowed interned Japanese Americans to return to the West Coast in 1945, the sharp wartime rise in the Black population had overextended these small pockets of unrestricted housing. As the war neared its end, the question of how Little Tokyo's recent arrivals would get along with the district's prewar inhabitants thus became a major source of debate. Prominent white politicians and media outlets predicted violent turf battles between Black and Japanese Americans would erupt. Black and Japanese American activists, by contrast, envisioned a new level of interethnic political cooperation developing from heightened interaction between their communities. Those with only a conventional understanding of "race relations"-characterized by the bilateral interaction between a white majority and a Black minority-were ill-prepared to respond to these developments.

Three issues at the fore of the Little Tokyo/Bronzeville story-the omnipotence of white racism, the specter of interethnic conflict, and the promise of interethnic coalitions-resonate throughout this book. In the pages that follow, I will demonstrate how and why Black and Japanese American communities came to occupy overlapping positions within the racial politics and geography of twentieth-century Los Angeles.

To provide an overarching framework for this investigation, I trace the contours of the city's multiracial hierarchy as it changed from the "white city" of the early twentieth century to the "world city" of the more recent past. Charting the rise of segregation, I posit that racism lay at the core of the 1920s real estate boom that made Los Angeles a major metropolis with a population surpassing 1 million. Although popular conceptions associate suburbanization with post-World War II American culture, the Southland's decentralization took off three decades before the fifties sitcom Leave It to Beaver began filming in the San Fernando Valley. Unlike the old downtown elite, who championed industrial Los Angeles as the "Chicago of the West," a rising bloc of developers and realtors drew on an idealized vision of the suburban neighborhood to market Southern California, especially the "Westside," as a site for the preservation and renewal of whiteness. Viewing World War II as a turning point, I highlight the distinct but equally critical roles Black and Japanese Americans played in the rise and fall of integration. The war brought a new sense of unity and difference. As whites and Blacks came together around the notion of "interracial progress," they did so primarily because anti-Japanese mobilization had created a heightened basis for national unity. Nevertheless, the postwar movement for integration brought about a reversal of Black and Japanese American fortunes. Whites increasingly exhibited either a passive or active acceptance of Japanese Americans but took greater measures to distance themselves both socially and geographically from Black (and Mexican) Americans. The ideological characterization of Japanese Americans as a "model minority" to be integrated served to stigmatize the others as "problem" minorities to be contained. But to the degree any postwar consensus existed, it was torn apart by the Watts Rebellion, signaling the demise of both integration and white hegemony. The book closes in the aftermath of Watts and at the dawn of the multicultural era, as African American mayor Tom Bradley and grassroots activists advanced and competing visions of Los Angeles as a multiethnic city within a global community.

This explication of urban political conditions provides context for closer scrutiny of the debates and struggles that took place within and between Black and Japanese American communities. The historical significance of these communities during this period is considerable. Los Angeles housed what were by far the largest concentrations of African Americans and Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Furthermore, while Blacks were of course the nation's largest nonwhite minority, Japanese Americans comprised the bulk of all Asians living in the United States. Ultimately, however, the presence of these two groups transcended numbers. At distinct historic junctures, the city's Black and Japanese American communities respectively served both as central targets of white supremacists and as models of racial progress.

My study couples two interconnected levels of analysis. At the most immediate level, this book is an account of how Black and Japanese Americans battled for housing, jobs, and political representation in Los Angeles as members of distinct ethnoracial groups. Drawing connections between seminal "Japanese" events like World War II internment and "Black" events like the civil rights movement, I compare and contrast the socioeconomic status and political standing of African Americans, Japanese Americans, and whites over the course of much of the twentieth century. My research further reveals how Black and Japanese Americans responded to instances of interethnic competition, as well as the degree to which they embraced opportunities for cooperation within oppositional social movements. As the narrative unfolds, it explains why Black and Japanese Americans faced common forms of racial discrimination prior to World War II but were subsequently thrust onto different historical paths.

On a second and broader level, this book is a case study of how race functions in a multiethnic context. By highlighting the triangular nature of relations between African Americans, Japanese Americans, and whites, my study provides multiple vantage points from which we may contemplate how diverse residents of Los Angeles saw their place within a multiracial order. Exploring the range of meanings these residents attached to both segregated and integrated communities, it offers a sense of how the multiethnic city was experienced on the ground. But it also shows how the ground itself shifted over the course of the twentieth century. What I mean by this is that the book's central categories of analysis-"African American," "Japanese American," and "white"- were historically contingent constructs. Racial definitions varied over time and space in conjunction with demographic, economic, and political changes that resituated Los Angeles within a regional, national, and global order. Most obviously, a host of terms have been employed to identify these groups, many of which are now anachronistic and some of which have always been pejorative-"Negro," "Black," "colored," "Japanese," "Oriental," "Caucasian," as well as a host of vulgar epithets.

While racialized struggles over resources altered the status of groups and their relationship to power, they perhaps less obviously changed the rules by which racial politics operated. Beyond charting material relations between Black, Japanese, and white Americans, my research uncovers the ideological bases of these triangular relations. White elites played Black and Japanese Americans off against each other to solidify white hegemony. In turn, Black and Japanese Americans remained highly conscious of each other's image and status as they negotiated and renegotiated their position within a multiracial social order. Differences in racialization became a basis for an opportunistic form of triangulation. By actively distancing themselves from the other group or passively accepting the distance created by white denigration of the other group, both Black and Japanese Americans were at times able to promote a sense of national belonging and greater white acceptance. Yet, if triangulation represented a form of capitulation to a hegemonic multiracial discourse, progressive activists of all races repeatedly sought to develop a counterhegemonic vision of multiracial solidarity.

As much as this book is about what transpired in the past, it is equally concerned with how we think about the politics of race. Moving in step with the multiethnic rhythms of life and politics in Los Angeles requires interrogating and in some cases abandoning commonly held assumptions drawn from histories written in black and white. For the remainder of this introduction, I argue that putting Black/Japanese American relations at the center of the history of race, politics, and urban space complicates what we have come to know as the "urban crisis," thereby challenging us to better come to terms with the origins of the "world city."

Beyond the Biracial City

A focus on multiethnic Los Angeles history from the perspective of Black and Japanese Americans offers new ways of seeing and new modes of interpreting what historian Thomas Sugrue has called "the origins of the urban crisis." Part of my story can be explained by the national patterns of urban segregation and inequality outlined by Sugrue in his influential 1996 book and expanded on by others in his wake. The Great Migration brought southern Blacks seeking political freedom and economic opportunity to the cities of the North and West, especially as the demand for their labor soared and Executive Order 8802 provided a measure to combat employment discrimination during World War II. Although a wave of European immigrants had used industrial employment as a first step toward social assimilation and economic security, racism and deindustrialization ultimately denied African Americans the same form of advancement. Whites viewed workers of color as competitors for their jobs, and they feared that integration would destroy their property values and deteriorate their children's schools. They deployed legal mechanisms, political pressure, grassroots mobilization, and racist violence to defend white privilege. Furthermore, postwar development, which was a joint product of private enterprise and public policy, magnified the scale of Black/white segregation and inequality. While new housing and employment opportunities concentrated in predominantly white suburbs, urban renewal efforts ravaged low-income residents and communities of color. Lastly, Cold War conservatism further dampened the prospects of urban Blacks by undermining the redistributive aspects of New Deal reform and repressing social democratic movements that advanced the principles of multiracial unity and "civil rights unionism."

At its core, the urban crisis narrative is an account of the failure of racial integration-a social movement and historical process whose fate has been inextricably bound to the construction of American national identity. First propelled by the optimistic liberal nationalism of World War II, the concept of racial integration prompted a heated public debate about national character. Social scientist Gunnar Myrdal's assertion that the "Negro problem" was a "moral issue" striking at "the heart of the American" served as the opening salvo. Published in 1944, Myrdal's monumental book, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, argued that racism was the central defect of a nation built on the principles of liberty, democracy, and equality. He was convinced, however, that Americans-by which he essentially meant white Americans-were inherently moral and rational beings, who would resolve the glaring contradiction preventing their nation from attaining its highest ideals. What followed in actuality was a quarter century of sharp conflict proving that integration was a difficult if not impossible goal to achieve. Epitomizing the pessimism of the late 1960s was the "basic conclusion" of the Kerner Commission. Charged by the federal government to investigate social conditions in the aftermath of the wave of urban rebellions, the blue-ribbon panel proclaimed, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white-separate and unequal." The urban crisis narrative reflects the cumulative effort of an entire generation of scholars and political commentators to comprehend why things went so terribly wrong.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Shifting Grounds of Race by Scott Kurashige
Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Tables xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Constructing the Segregated City 13

Chapter 2 Home Improvement 36

Chapter 3 Racial Progress and Class Formation 64

Chapter 4 In the Shadow of War 91

Chapter 5 Japanese American Internment 108

Chapter 6 The “Negro Victory” Movement 132

Chapter 7 Bronzeville and Little Tokyo 158

Chapter 8 Toward a Model Minority 186

Chapter 9 Black Containment 205

Chapter 10 The Fight for Housing Integration 232

Chapter 11 From Integration to Multiculturalism 259

Conclusion 286

Abbreviations 295

Notes 297

Acknowledgments 331

Index 333

What People are Saying About This

Mae Ngai

By offering a comparative and relational history of African Americans and Japanese Americans in Los Angeles and their respective struggles against racial segregation, Scott Kurashige extends our historical knowledge about race relations and civil rights to the West. Indeed, he shows just how many of the multiracial questions that vex us today were prefigured in Los Angeles in the early and middle twentieth century.
— Mae Ngai, author of "Impossible Subjects"

Mike Davis

Scott Kurashige shifts the urban history paradigm in this brilliantly triangulated account of African American and Japanese American resistance to white racism in Los Angeles.
— Mike Davis, author of "Planet of Slums" and "In Praise of Barbarians"

David Roediger

Long in historical reach, this compelling study displays a sure grasp of Asian American and African American urban histories as well as an ability to locate race in urban space, mapping political and economic inequalities in all of their human dimensions. It succeeds mightily at capturing possibility and tragedy in Los Angeles history.
— David Roediger, University of Illinois

From the Publisher

"Scott Kurashige shifts the urban history paradigm in this brilliantly triangulated account of African American and Japanese American resistance to white racism in Los Angeles."—Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums and In Praise of Barbarians

"Long in historical reach, this compelling study displays a sure grasp of Asian American and African American urban histories as well as an ability to locate race in urban space, mapping political and economic inequalities in all of their human dimensions. It succeeds mightily at capturing possibility and tragedy in Los Angeles history."—David Roediger, University of Illinois

"By offering a comparative and relational history of African Americans and Japanese Americans in Los Angeles and their respective struggles against racial segregation, Scott Kurashige extends our historical knowledge about race relations and civil rights to the West. Indeed, he shows just how many of the multiracial questions that vex us today were prefigured in Los Angeles in the early and middle twentieth century."—Mae Ngai, author of Impossible Subjects

Editorial Reviews

"Winner of the 2008 Albert J. Beveridge Book Award, American Historical Association"

Winner of the 2008 Book Award in History, Association for Asian American Studies

"During 'the white years' in LA history, you might think Asian immigrant groups and black migrants from the South lived in separate worlds. The truth is more complicated: sometimes they were pitted against each other, sometimes they fought—and sometimes they joined forces. . . . Those competitions and alliances are the subject of Scott Kurashige's fascinating and important new book."—-Jon Wiener, The Nation

"Scott Kurashige's impressive investigation of the interactions between Japanese Americans and African Americans in mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles covers a tremendous amount of historical ground. . . . Clearly, there are stories still to be told here, but we are fortunate that Kurashige has given us an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into how leaders of two subaltern communities navigated the dangerous waters of race in a twentieth-century American city."—-Jeremiah B. C. Axelrod, Journal of American History

"This excellent study demonstrates the value of multiethnic studies for urban history."—-J. Borchert, Choice

"The . . . book . . . is clearly written and enjoyable—and merits the attention of those interested in the history of Los Angeles, the West, and black and Japanese Americans."—-Shana Bernstein, Southern California Quarterly

"Scott Kurashige's fine study advances the creation of a fully multi-cultural American history. . . . On a personal note, as a Japanese American from the Crenshaw district, this reviewer found Shifting Grounds to be consistently enlightening about familiar individuals, organizations, and events, both Japanese American and African American."—-Dean S. Toji, California History

"Shifting Grounds is a refreshing new look at race relations in Southern California and is not bogged down with academic lingo, making it an easy read for the general public."—-Martha Nakagawa, Nichi Bei Times

"Kurashige has ventured into uncharted territory and deserves much praise and applause for advancing our understanding of one of the most important, but often overlooked, cities in American history."—-John Putman, Reviews in American History

"The Shifting Grounds of Race is a carefully researched comparative work that makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of immigration, race relations, and urbanization."—-Allison Varzally, Pacific Historical Review

"Set in 20th century Los Angeles, Scott Kurashige offers a sweeping historical narrative that allows the reader to experience, as the book is titled, 'the shifting grounds of race'. . . . It promises to become a benchmark for future scholarship in comparative race and ethnic relations and U.S. urban history."—-Yuichiro Onishi, Journal of African American History

"Scott Kurashige has written a book of major importance in American urban history. . . . Kurashige's central and singular strength comes from his intimate knowledge of the communities and neighborhoods he writes about. . . . In addition to the broader history of Los Angeles, Kurashige has made a valuable contribution to the history of Japanese Americans by documenting the urban story of internment during World War II. In doing so, he presents an unprecedented level of detail and richness behind individuals and institutions that mobilized for and against internment."—-Edward J. W. Park, Journal of Public and International Affairs

"Based on an extraordinary range of sources and addressing multiple fields of study, The Shifting Grounds of Race reveals cogently the promises and limitations of anti-racist struggles of the past and the interpretive and political possibilities of what Kurashige calls 'multiethnic history.' . . . Kurashige's original framework—the triangulated racialization of whites, blacks, and Japanese Americans over many decades—and meticulous social histories of Black and Japanese Angelenos identify and demystify the many overlapping dialectics of race find class in shaping the twentieth century and beyond."—-Moon-Ho Jung, Western Historical Quarterly

"The Shifting Grounds of Race is . . . a provocative, fascinating read. It convincingly argues that the political strategies adopted by African Americans and Japanese Americans were profoundly shaped by broader political, organizational and economic factors. It also injects Japanese Americans, and Nissei in particular, squarely into the history of Los Angeles. Kurashige's emphasis on Japanese Americans adds another important layer to our understanding of racial politics and urbanization in the United States."—-Daisy Rooks, Against the Current

"Scott Kurashige's book . . . [is] based on impressive historical scholarship, and I can recommend [it] as a fascinating read."—-David O. Sears, Perspectives on Politics

"Kurashige's book is still a work that deserves careful reading and wide application in our own research and classrooms."—-Chris Friday, American Historical Review

"Kurashige is to be commended for taking on the politically laden concept of multiculturalism and digging under it to show us the shifting grounds of racial politics and doing so in a way that is both specific to Los Angeles but with clear, far reaching implications for American class and ethnic relations. As such, this book is not an exercise in geographic determinism but a complex intervention into the agonizing social and political history of integration and race formation in the United States."—-Sarah Schrank, Journal of Social History

"By underscoring the interactions and histories of multiple communities, this remarkable book diversifies and problematizes readers' understanding of race relations and offers a glimpse into America's multiracial future. This reviewer highly recommends it."—-Matthew C. Whitaker, The Historian

From the Publisher

By underscoring the interactions and histories of multiple communities, this remarkable book diversifies and problematizes readers' understanding of race relations and offers a glimpse into America's multiracial future. This reviewer highly recommends it.

The Historian - Matthew C. Whitaker

Kurashige is to be commended for taking on the politically laden concept of multiculturalism and digging under it to show us the shifting grounds of racial politics and doing so in a way that is both specific to Los Angeles but with clear, far reaching implications for American class and ethnic relations. As such, this book is not an exercise in geographic determinism but a complex intervention into the agonizing social and political history of integration and race formation in the United States.

Journal of Social History - Sarah Schrank

Kurashige's book is still a work that deserves careful reading and wide application in our own research and classrooms.

American Historical Review - Chris Friday

Scott Kurashige's book . . . [is] based on impressive historical scholarship, and I can recommend [it] as a fascinating read.

Perspectives on Politics - David O. Sears

The Shifting Grounds of Race is . . . a provocative, fascinating read. It convincingly argues that the political strategies adopted by African Americans and Japanese Americans were profoundly shaped by broader political, organizational and economic factors. It also injects Japanese Americans, and Nissei in particular, squarely into the history of Los Angeles. Kurashige's emphasis on Japanese Americans adds another important layer to our understanding of racial politics and urbanization in the United States.

Against the Current - Daisy Rooks

Based on an extraordinary range of sources and addressing multiple fields of study, The Shifting Grounds of Race reveals cogently the promises and limitations of anti-racist struggles of the past and the interpretive and political possibilities of what Kurashige calls 'multiethnic history.' . . . Kurashige's original framework—the triangulated racialization of whites, blacks, and Japanese Americans over many decades—and meticulous social histories of Black and Japanese Angelenos identify and demystify the many overlapping dialectics of race find class in shaping the twentieth century and beyond.

Western Historical Quarterly - Moon-Ho Jung

Scott Kurashige has written a book of major importance in American urban history. . . . Kurashige's central and singular strength comes from his intimate knowledge of the communities and neighborhoods he writes about. . . . In addition to the broader history of Los Angeles, Kurashige has made a valuable contribution to the history of Japanese Americans by documenting the urban story of internment during World War II. In doing so, he presents an unprecedented level of detail and richness behind individuals and institutions that mobilized for and against internment.

Journal of Public and International Affairs - Edward J. W. Park

Set in 20th century Los Angeles, Scott Kurashige offers a sweeping historical narrative that allows the reader to experience, as the book is titled, 'the shifting grounds of race'. . . . It promises to become a benchmark for future scholarship in comparative race and ethnic relations and U.S. urban history.

Journal of African American History - Yuichiro Onishi

The Shifting Grounds of Race is a carefully researched comparative work that makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of immigration, race relations, and urbanization.

Pacific Historical Review - Allison Varzally

Kurashige has ventured into uncharted territory and deserves much praise and applause for advancing our understanding of one of the most important, but often overlooked, cities in American history.

Reviews in American History - John Putman

Shifting Grounds is a refreshing new look at race relations in Southern California and is not bogged down with academic lingo, making it an easy read for the general public.

Nichi Bei Times - Martha Nakagawa

Scott Kurashige's fine study advances the creation of a fully multi-cultural American history. . . . On a personal note, as a Japanese American from the Crenshaw district, this reviewer found Shifting Grounds to be consistently enlightening about familiar individuals, organizations, and events, both Japanese American and African American.

California History - Dean S. Toji

The . . . book . . . is clearly written and enjoyable—and merits the attention of those interested in the history of Los Angeles, the West, and black and Japanese Americans.

Southern California Quarterly - Shana Bernstein

This excellent study demonstrates the value of multiethnic studies for urban history.

Choice - J. Borchert

Scott Kurashige's impressive investigation of the interactions between Japanese Americans and African Americans in mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles covers a tremendous amount of historical ground. . . . Clearly, there are stories still to be told here, but we are fortunate that Kurashige has given us an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into how leaders of two subaltern communities navigated the dangerous waters of race in a twentieth-century American city.

Journal of American History - Jeremiah B. C. Axelrod

During 'the white years' in LA history, you might think Asian immigrant groups and black migrants from the South lived in separate worlds. The truth is more complicated: sometimes they were pitted against each other, sometimes they fought—and sometimes they joined forces. . . . Those competitions and alliances are the subject of Scott Kurashige's fascinating and important new book.

The Nation - Jon Wiener

Scott Kurashige has written a book of major importance in American urban history. . . . Kurashige's central and singular strength comes from his intimate knowledge of the communities and neighborhoods he writes about. . . . In addition to the broader history of Los Angeles, Kurashige has made a valuable contribution to the history of Japanese Americans by documenting the urban story of internment during World War II. In doing so, he presents an unprecedented level of detail and richness behind individuals and institutions that mobilized for and against internment.

Journal of Public and International Affairs - Edward J.W. Park

Scott Kurashige's impressive investigation of the interactions between Japanese Americans and African Americans in mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles covers a tremendous amount of historical ground. . . . Clearly, there are stories still to be told here, but we are fortunate that Kurashige has given us an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into how leaders of two subaltern communities navigated the dangerous waters of race in a twentieth-century American city.

Journal of American History - Jeremiah B.C. Axelrod

By underscoring the interactions and histories of multiple communities, this remarkable book diversifies and problematizes readers' understanding of race relations and offers a glimpse into America's multiracial future. This reviewer highly recommends it.
— Matthew C. Whitaker

The Historian

Kurashige is to be commended for taking on the politically laden concept of multiculturalism and digging under it to show us the shifting grounds of racial politics and doing so in a way that is both specific to Los Angeles but with clear, far reaching implications for American class and ethnic relations. As such, this book is not an exercise in geographic determinism but a complex intervention into the agonizing social and political history of integration and race formation in the United States.
— Sarah Schrank

Journal of Social History

Kurashige's book is still a work that deserves careful reading and wide application in our own research and classrooms.
— Chris Friday

American Historical Review

Scott Kurashige's book . . . [is] based on impressive historical scholarship, and I can recommend [it] as a fascinating read.
— David O. Sears

Perspectives on Politics

The Shifting Grounds of Race is . . . a provocative, fascinating read. It convincingly argues that the political strategies adopted by African Americans and Japanese Americans were profoundly shaped by broader political, organizational and economic factors. It also injects Japanese Americans, and Nissei in particular, squarely into the history of Los Angeles. Kurashige's emphasis on Japanese Americans adds another important layer to our understanding of racial politics and urbanization in the United States.
— Daisy Rooks

Against the Current

Based on an extraordinary range of sources and addressing multiple fields of study, The Shifting Grounds of Race reveals cogently the promises and limitations of anti-racist struggles of the past and the interpretive and political possibilities of what Kurashige calls 'multiethnic history.' . . . Kurashige's original framework—the triangulated racialization of whites, blacks, and Japanese Americans over many decades—and meticulous social histories of Black and Japanese Angelenos identify and demystify the many overlapping dialectics of race find class in shaping the twentieth century and beyond.
— Moon-Ho Jung

Western Historical Quarterly

Scott Kurashige has written a book of major importance in American urban history. . . . Kurashige's central and singular strength comes from his intimate knowledge of the communities and neighborhoods he writes about. . . . In addition to the broader history of Los Angeles, Kurashige has made a valuable contribution to the history of Japanese Americans by documenting the urban story of internment during World War II. In doing so, he presents an unprecedented level of detail and richness behind individuals and institutions that mobilized for and against internment.
— Edward J. W. Park

Journal of Public and International Affairs

Set in 20th century Los Angeles, Scott Kurashige offers a sweeping historical narrative that allows the reader to experience, as the book is titled, 'the shifting grounds of race'. . . . It promises to become a benchmark for future scholarship in comparative race and ethnic relations and U.S. urban history.
— Yuichiro Onishi

Journal of African American History

The Shifting Grounds of Race is a carefully researched comparative work that makes a significant contribution to the scholarship of immigration, race relations, and urbanization.
— Allison Varzally

Pacific Historical Review

Kurashige has ventured into uncharted territory and deserves much praise and applause for advancing our understanding of one of the most important, but often overlooked, cities in American history.
— John Putman

Reviews in American History

Shifting Grounds is a refreshing new look at race relations in Southern California and is not bogged down with academic lingo, making it an easy read for the general public.
— Martha Nakagawa

Nichi Bei Times

Scott Kurashige's fine study advances the creation of a fully multi-cultural American history. . . . On a personal note, as a Japanese American from the Crenshaw district, this reviewer found Shifting Grounds to be consistently enlightening about familiar individuals, organizations, and events, both Japanese American and African American.
— Dean S. Toji

California History

The . . . book . . . is clearly written and enjoyable—and merits the attention of those interested in the history of Los Angeles, the West, and black and Japanese Americans.
— Shana Bernstein

Southern California Quarterly

This excellent study demonstrates the value of multiethnic studies for urban history.
— J. Borchert

Choice

Scott Kurashige's impressive investigation of the interactions between Japanese Americans and African Americans in mid-twentieth-century Los Angeles covers a tremendous amount of historical ground. . . . Clearly, there are stories still to be told here, but we are fortunate that Kurashige has given us an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into how leaders of two subaltern communities navigated the dangerous waters of race in a twentieth-century American city.
— Jeremiah B. C. Axelrod

Journal of American History

During 'the white years' in LA history, you might think Asian immigrant groups and black migrants from the South lived in separate worlds. The truth is more complicated: sometimes they were pitted against each other, sometimes they fought—and sometimes they joined forces. . . . Those competitions and alliances are the subject of Scott Kurashige's fascinating and important new book.
— Jon Wiener

The Nation