History in the News

I began writing this post in June, but lost steam as soon as I began my internship. While it's no longer timely, I still feel that this article is worth highlighting and hope my comments on it inspire those of you who missed it the first go-round to give it a read. I've chosen not to provide a summary of Coates' story and argument, and recommend that you look at my post after reading the article. 

In June, The Atlantic published a cover story by Ta-Nehisi Coates that garnered a lot of buzz. I want to recommend that you read it not only because it's a fabulous article--richly descriptive, informative, packed with history, and with a solid argument--but also because I think it does a pretty decent job of contextualizing my own research. In particular, the sixth section entitled "Making the Second Ghetto" introduces the very historiography into which my own project seeks to intervene.

The strength of Coates' article is how effectively it describes how racial discrimination has, since World War II, been incorporated into the structure of our society--our laws, policies, and practices concerning housing, employment, and mobility. This structural discrimination has perpetuated a wealth gap between black and white Americans. "The Case for Reparations" traces how American racial discrimination outlived the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Civil Rights movement and continues to exist today in the form of discriminatory lending programs (especially around mortgages and housing), in unequal distribution of job training and placement programs, and in the insiduous claims of pathologically unfit black parents (particularly absent fathers and single mothers).  Coates argues that until we recognize that racism continues to shape the opportunities and decisions made by black Americans, we cannot begin to close the wealth gap and mitigate persistent economic inequality.

In "Making the Second Ghetto," Coates supports his claims by referring to a historical work of the same name, which was published by Arnold Hirsch in 1983. This book is a foundational text in the scholarship on twentieth-century U.S. urban history and African American history. In brief, Hirsch argues that racist housing and redevelopment policies in postwar cities transformed segregated neighborhoods (the "first ghetto") into overcrowded, decrepit, and still segregated black "second ghettos."  Although it is already 30 years old, historians are still debating its various merits--myself included! Why? Well, primarily because many of our contemporary social problems stem from the deindustrialization and disinvestment in American cities that occurred between the 1940s and 1970s, and if we want to understand the present it helps to examine these same issues in the past. 

The Making of the Second Ghetto offered a new, snappy thesis to explain why these events unfolded--prompting a wave of studies that agreed or disagreed with Hirsch's "second ghetto" model. Hirsch changed the way historians thought about the relationship between black and white Americans in the twentieth century by reminding scholars that state policymakers made outsized contributions to the problem of segregated urban neighborhoods. Previously, historians believed that American ghettos were the inevitable result of racism and discrimination. Hirsch challenged the assumption that the "inner city" ghetto was an inevitability, and repeatedly emphasized that the consolidation of the "first ghetto" into the "second ghetto" could have been avoided, had white business interests and white homeowners not parlayed their power into legislative action and housing policies that transformed extant ghettos into even more isolated (and isolating) neighborhoods. Hirsch wrote the following in the introduction to the book:

"Indeed, the real tragedy surrounding the emergence of the modern ghetto is not that it has been inherited but that it has been periodically renewed and strengthened. Fresh decisions, not the mere acquiescence to old ones, reinforced and shaped the contemporary black metropolis”{C}

What historians later knocked Hirsch for, however, was that all of the "fresh decisions" that he focused on in Making the Second Ghetto were made by white elites and not by black residents of the "second ghetto". Much of the research since 1985, and particularly in the twenty-first century, has focused on the black grassroots activism in formal politics during this "urban crisis" of the 1960s and 1970s. The strength of "The Case for Reparations," in fact, is its focus on the activist response of the Contract Buyers League to abusive practices by white real estate speculators. Coates highlights how these aspiring homeowners organized themselves--eventually forming a group as large as 500--to shame contract sellers for their exploitation and to file lawsuits seeking repayment of funds that contract sellers extorted from these vulnerable buyers. Rather than passively acquiescing to structural racism, black urbanites reacted in a variety of ways to challenge exploitation. 

This is where my research picks up. My dissertation does not look at arguments for reparation, nor am I particularly concerned with debating against Hirsch--plenty of more advanced scholars have done a superb job of clarifying and elaborating on his theory. Rather, I am interested in grassroots activism as a response to these transformations of the postwar city (the Urban Crisis and consolidation of the "second ghetto"). Specifically, I'm curious about how urban citizens used Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) during the 1960s and '70s as sites of activism. Consequently, how did this activism reshape the JCC? My research examines how non-white (black and Latino) residents of formerly Jewish neighborhoods like Washington Heights or the Lower East Side or the Central Bronx regarded Jewish Community Centers--a space that offered them social services and recreational space but did not claim to be for them. Likewise, the dissertation studies how the Jewish residents remaining in these communities used the JCC as a place to organize to "improve" the neighborhood--whether "improvement" was a euphemism for segregation or meant accepting diversity and advocating for the inclusion of non-Jewish membership.

I Was a Workin' Gal

Time to explain my radio silence over the summer. I had the privilege of interning at a foundation here in Pittsburgh, which gave me the opportunity to translate my (historical) research skills to a different field, in an applied context. The mission of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, where I interned for ten weeks, is to keep people out of hospitals. The Jewish Healthcare Foundation (JHF) has developed several interventions to train frontline health care workers in strategies to reduce medical errors, make their workflows more efficient (reducing redundant procedures), and have discussions with patients that empower them to become partners in their care. The JHF also provides grants to other organizations for them to pilot interventions that have similar goals.

I wanted to be an intern at the JHF for several reasons. On an ideological level, I am committed to reforming our country's healthcare system to eliminate health disparities between Americans of different races, classes, nationalities and gender identities. The JHF's work to reduce the cost of healthcare while improving healthcare outcomes appealed to me because I believe these measures are an important step towards addressing health disparities. On a practical level, I wanted to challenge myself to return to healthcare-related research and to write for a non-academic audience--particularly an audience that was actively engaged in the very work I was researching.

I was assigned to write a report summarizing the experiences of a JHF project that was wrapping up its final phase. The project managers wanted this report to be a tool they could use to share the intervention they had developed (in this case, a strategy to get HIV/AIDS patients to see primary care physicians). They hoped that other regional health organizations, health departments, or AIDS service organizations could also implement this strategy, having observed the successes and learned from the challenges faced by the JHF. 

In addition to learning how the intervention worked, how it was paid for, and what actors were involved, I also had to learn how a public health strategy like this can be evaluated. What are the measures that indicate success? What quantitative data--like number of visits to a physician by a single patient--is most useful and important? Similarly, what qualitative data--like a patients' satisfaction with the community healthcare worker who helped them make doctors appointments--helps us interpret these figures? I read narratives written by the participating organizations and community healthcare workers, compared them to the statistical analyses that my fellow intern (a biostatistician) prepared, and then summarized these findings in my report. Finding the words to communicate this information in a clear, concise, and easily digestible manner was a difficult but very instructive exercise.

Overall, the internship was a great experience. I learned an incredible amount about the current state of the American healthcare system. I renewed my desire to read, research, and write about public health and healthcare interventions. I met great people and was invited to several valuable networking events. Most of all, I found it refreshing to take a break from academia and see the all the hard work that people are doing to improve how Americans receive medical care.  

The internship ended in early August, and I quickly had to resume focus on my dissertation. I did three weeks of research in New York over the next two months, and I now spend my days reading through documents and trying to get a sense of the "big picture"--what were the major trends and events that affected Jewish Community Centers in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s? For the rest of this week, I will be posting about the dissertation project: what I initially proposed to study; the research I've done so far; and how the project has already changed! 

Luxuriating

The liminality I discussed on Tuesday comes with one small silver lining—along with a transition of task comes a transition in schedule. Although I will have a ten-week internship this summer that requires me to work regular business hours Monday-Thursday, it will be the exception for the next three years. While dissertating, I can set my own schedule. Unless I am teaching, I do not have to go to campus. I can work when I want, where I want, with whomever I want.

I do get a significant amount of work done in my office, but it’s a depressing space. All of the grads are housed in one large room that’s divided into four rows of cubicles. There are no windows and thus no natural light. The fluorescent lighting has a yellow cast that makes everyone in there look like they’re experiencing liver failure. It’s a decent place to spend a few hours writing during the winter, when you know that everywhere else is just as depressing and possibly not as warm. When the weather is nice, I much prefer to work at a well-lit coffee shop—my favorite spot even has an outdoor patio! I find that I write best when I move locations day-to-day. It’s nice to have new scenery.

These days, I’m really enjoying the process of waking up slowly, walking to a coffeeshop slowly, and drinking a latte really slowly. Easing into the day is such a luxury. I have nothing urgent to do, and since I work for myself I set my own goals and deadlines. And right now, I’ve decided that everything can be done slowly. I trust myself, and I am confident that everything will get done.

Liminality

From Wikipedia:

“In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word limen, meaning ‘a threshold’) is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the ritual is complete.”

Liminality will define my summer. After successfully defending my prospectus last week, I have a new task ahead of me and must master a new set of skills. I have to read an immense volume of historical records, find a story to tell, synthesize a lot of context, and then effectively communicate it to an academic audience. I have practiced these skills at earlier points in my short research career, but never to this extent. The scope of the dissertation is overwhelmingly large.

In truth, I’m quite exhausted by liminality and feel that I’ve spent more than sufficient time in this state over the past year. I finished my coursework last May, and began the ritual of preparing for my doctoral exams. I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that I had to read the 150 books and articles on my lists, and to figure out how they were all in dialogue with each other. I knew that my exams would pose a question for me to answer, using the readings as support. I had no sense of what these questions would be, however, and it made me very insecure about whether I understood the arguments in these texts or whether I was taking notes “correctly.” It was only after two and a half months that I woke up one day and realized that the disorientation had lifted and that I truly understood what the heck I was doing.

Immediately after finishing exams, the liminality set in once more. In early February I wrote this in my journal:

“The transition from exams to prospectus has been rough. Just as I got used to reading everyday and nailed the historiography, I have to get back into the swing of writing.”

I worked really hard to develop a daily ritual of dedicated, focused writing—with your help, dear readers—and again the liminality ebbed as the process of prospectus writing became routine. I lived with the prospectus for four months, and now it’s done. There’s nothing to do, no tweaks or revisions to make. My job is now to go and start the research, to fulfill the ceremony of writing a dissertation. Three transitions in one year is quite a lot, and I’m tired of the insecurity that arrives with the “ambiguity and disorientation.” That’s why I’m relieved that it’s also summer, that I can take a break without getting too behind, and to focus on other activities for a little while.

Victory Strut

I greet you this week as a newly minted Doctoral Candidate! Until you begin writing your dissertation, you are merely a doctoral student. Once your dissertation prospectus is approved, you’re finally considered a candidate for the Ph.D. degree.

My defense was truly a pleasure. I have such a supportive committee of advisors, and although they spent quite a bit of the hour-long defense critiquing my work and pushing me to consider the weaknesses of the project, they also expressed optimism that the dissertation will make a significant contribution to the historical literature. The unanimous critique made by my three advisors was that the scope of the project—particularly the chronology—is too large. They encouraged me to focus on the 1960s and 1970s, and to pack the 1940s and 1950s into an initial, introductory chapter. I see their point. I tend to think very concretely, and in chronological order, and it’s reflected in my chapter outline. I begin at the end of WWII and slowly scaffold the narrative into the ‘60s and ‘70s. My committee pointed out that this scaffolding is not necessary, that much of the earlier story can be folded into the later narrative as historical context. So the defense was very productive and I feel better prepared to begin my archival research.

My plan for the rest of the summer, however, is to focus on reading rather than researching. I have several important texts to read that will help me contextualize my case studies. The additional benefit of reading and not researching/writing is that I will sneak a little break from the stress of constantly producing deep thoughts. I’m looking forward to a refreshing summer.