Roundup

There's More to Cinco De Mayo than Many Americans Know

by Ruben A. Arellano

American Cinco de Mayo celebrations emerged at a time when ethnic Mexicans who were made Mexican-American by the US conquest of their homes looked to Mexico's defeat of a French imperialist invasion in 1862 for inspiration at a time when the Confederacy threatened to expand into the southwest.

Affluent White Parents Don't Understand the "Public" in Public Schools

by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz

Are parents' rights movements aimed at ensuring quality education, or at destroying the potential of public schools to support both learning and a democratic culture across lines of race and class? 

The Laundry Workers' Uprising and the Fight for Democratic Unionism

by Jenny Carson

African American and Black Caribbean immigrant women were key organizers of New York laundry workers who pushed for a union movement that rejected divisions of occupation, race and nationality in favor of workplace democracy. 

Judicial Leaks, 19th Century Style

by Mark A. Graber

When a Justice leaked a draft of the Dred Scott decision to James Buchanan, hoping the president-elect would cajole a fellow Pennsylvanian on the court to join the opinion as a non-southern vote, it was a non-story. Today the focus should be squarely on the substance of Samuel Alito's ruling.

Leaked Opinion Shows Not Just the End of Roe, but Conservatives' Delight in It

by Mary Ziegler

The court's right-wing majority is clearly emboldened by the belief that the Republican Party and the conservative legal movement have its back. 

Grandpa, Tell Us About the Division of Labor on the Hippie Commune

by Erik Loomis

Despite their grand countercultural goals, communes tended to follow a rigidly gendered division of labor.

Abortion Isn't in the Constituiton? Neither are Women

by Jill Lepore

"Women are indeed missing from the Constitution. That’s a problem to remedy, not a precedent to honor."

Los Angeles's Response to 1992 Riots Remains Model of How Not to Do It

by V.N. Trinh

The strategy of encouraging private business development, without seriously reforming police, fixing public schools, or addressing poverty, proved unequal to the task of promoting justice in LA. 

Racist Jokes Were the Glue of the LAPD Culture that Led to 1992 Riots

by Raúl Pérez

The LAPD was never forced to confront the documented ways that a culture of racial stereotyping and bigoted jokes cemented the systemic abuse of communities of color in the city. 

The Democratic Potential of China's Grassroots Intellectuals

by Sebastian Veg

Chinese intellectuals working outside the protection of state-controlled universites have a perilous existence, but carry on the struggle against the regime's efforts to impose orthodoxy on the nation's history. 

The Xi Era Demands New Ways of Understanding China

by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

This is the introductory essay to a special issue on contemporary China. 

Palm Oil is Colonialism's Continuing Nightmare

by Max Haiven

The extraction and trade in palm oil in west Africa has been at the center of two centuries of exploitation and violence, which stands to get worse as the Ukraine war threatens the world supply of competing sunflower oil. 

The Reconstruction Amendments and the Basis of American Abortion Rights

by Peggy Cooper Davis

When the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments were debated, concerns about the protection of both public rights of citizenship and private, intimate rights of individuals were front and center. There is, notwithstanding Samuel Alito's opinion, a long tradition of constitutional respect for privacy.

Originalists Seriously Misconstrue the Constitution's Silences on Abortion

by Laura Briggs

Samuel Alito would argue that the Constitution's silence on abortion means the founders recognized no right to it. But it's more likely they understood abortion to be a common act that didn't intersect with the business of the government. 

How Protesters Pushed Jimmy Carter to Support Disability Rights

by Matthew Rozsa

While Carter campaigned on pledges to support the demands of the disabled for fuller participation in American society, he didn't fulfill those problems without a strong push from protesters in the movement. 

Is Historic Preservation Ruining American Cities?

by Jacob Anbinder

Historic preservation laws often have a loose relationship to the actual historic significance of buildings, and an even looser relationship to the interests of cities in meeting their residents' social needs. 

Public Colleges Need More Democracy, Not More Administration

by Larry Hanley and Vida Samiian

The Cal State system is showing the effects of a bloated management structure without accountability that is increasingly common across higher education. 

Race and Religion Have Always Helped Determine Who Gets Refuge in the US

by Laura E. Alexander, Jane Hong, Karen Hooge Michalka and Luis E. Romero

While Ukrainians fleeing war are deserving of aid from the United States, the treatment of both Haitian and Syrian refugees shows that the asylum process is far from equitable. 

W.E.B. DuBois's Abolition Democracy

by Gerald Horne

DuBois understood the impossibility of separating a historical analysis of Reconstruction from the political context of Jim Crow racial totalitarianism and exploitative capitalism. 

The Roundup Top Ten for April 29, 2022

The top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web this week.