"The author seeks to forge a positive national consensus based on two building blocks. First, the nation's many ethnic groups can be a powerful source of unprecedented economic, artistic, educational, and scientific creativity. Second, this wealth of cultural opportunity offers a way to erase the black/white dichotomy that, as it poisons everyday life, masks the shared injustices of millions of European, Asian, African, Native and Latino Americans. Fernandez offers a provocative analysis of how we arrived at our current ethnic and racial dilemmas and what can be done to move beyond them. Concerned citizens, scholars and students of American immigration, ethnic studies and social policy will find this book insightful and thought provoking."--BOOK JACKET.