Acknowledgments

I have been blessed with some extraordinary guides, mentors, colleagues, friends, and, above all, family. Without those people who have both challenged me and had my back as I worked on this project, the book you are now reading would never have been possible. This book had its incubation in a set of conversations I had in graduate school with a truly remarkable group of scholars and teachers at Brown University. Foremost among them was James T. Campbell, whose model of integrity and rigorous thinking and writing remains a constant source of inspiration and guidance in every single aspect of my life as a scholar. I am especially grateful to Jim for his investment in the development of this project and for his close and illuminating readings of draft after draft of each chapter. Most of all I appreciate his contagious enthusiasm for the art of historical narrative. To this day, I walk away from conversations with Jim enlightened and enlivened, rededicated to the task at hand. I also offer my most sincere thanks to Mari Jo Buhle and B. Anthony Bogues. They modeled for me all that I aspire to be as a rigorous and responsive mentor and guide to students.

While in Providence I found an invaluable intellectual community both inside and outside the walls of Brown University. I thank Doug Brown, Liza Burbank, Marcia Chatelain, Tom Chen, Themis Chronopoulos, Joe Clark, Moritz Ege, Gill Frank, Jim Gatewood, C. Morgan Grefe, Jonathan Hagel, Anas Hamimech, Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Sheyda Jahanbani, Katie C. Miller, S. Ani Mukherji, Jason Pontius, Kate Schapira, Kate Schatz, and Sarah Wald. I especially thank Ani, Jonathan, and Sheyda, who have been my closest intellectual companions on this journey. Thank you, Katie, for allowing me to kvetch to you over the years and for letting me bombard you with crudely written paragraphs masquerading as correspondence.

This book would not have been possible without the support of librarians and archivists at Brown University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Yale University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Library of Congress. Nor would it have been possible without fellowships from the Brown Graduate School and Emmanuel College. I would especially like to thank Emmanuel College’s Nancy Northrup, Bill Leonard, and Javier Marion for their hospitality and guidance during my year at Emmanuel as a Diversity Dissertation Fellow.

I thank Samuel K. Roberts for his early encouragement of my project and for providing me with a vital forum in which to share my research. Alongside Sam, a number of other colleagues have contributed to the development and completion of this project. I thank most especially Bart Beaty, Leah Gordon, and Jay Garcia. I’ve been tremendously lucky as well to have a set of friends and confidants who’ve been there to keep me intellectually and existentially sane over the years. They have rescued me from the monotony of the solitary life of the desk on many occasions. And it has often been my nonacademic friends who have reminded me of the necessity that this book be in the world for everyday people to read. Thank you to Joe Barbour, Ben Carlin, Derek Andrew Curtis, Quentin DiDonna, Jamahl Gambler, Michael Guilbert, Kibria Sarkisian, Alyasha Owerka-Moore, Darryl A. Smith, and my Tower Bar crew.

The University of California, San Diego, has provided generous research and writing support through the Hellman Family Fellowship, the Faculty Career Development Grant, and the Academic Senate Research Grant. At UCSD, I have been fortunate to have Natalia Molina and Curtis Marez as my official faculty mentors. They are two of the most patient, generous, and engaged scholars I have ever encountered within American academia. I have also been the recipient of unstinting support and guidance from past chairs of the Ethnic Studies Department, Ross Frank and Yen Le Espiritu. Not only did they read and comment on chapter drafts of the book, but they consistently showed buoyant enthusiasm for my research. I thank as well the rest of my colleagues in Ethnic Studies, its faculty, its graduate students, and its staff, most especially Mary Polytaridis and Samira Khazai for their help in navigating the UC behemoth and for their unflagging faith that I would get this book done! I also thank the Urban Studies and Planning Department, especially its chair, Steve Erie. And I must single out two recent UCSD PhDs for being treasured interlocutors, comrades, and constant caregivers: thank you to Jose Fuste and Jade Power Sotomayor. A quick shout to Cutler Edwards, a valued friend and a real up-and-comer. Thanks to Salvador Zarate for his assistance in the final stage of completing the book.

It is impossible to reflect in words the gratitude I have for the love and support my brother Isak and my sisters Key, Ahnya, and Cybele have shown me over the years. Each of them contributed in ways tangible and intangible to my dedication to the life of the mind, the driving force of my own way of being in the world. I thank my mother, Yvonne Marie Clark, for her unconditional love and for her enthusiasm about all I say and do—just what I always need when the going is rough.

I am so very lucky that Arlene C. Lopez came back into my life just over three years ago. I am profoundly thankful for the love, patience, hard work, and commitment I receive from her. She has seriously been this book’s most consistent booster since the moment I gave her the elevator pitch on its subject and its argument.

Lastly, I thank the editors of this series, Sander L. Gilman and George J. Makari, along with my editors, John Ackerman and Michael McGandy, the assistant to the director, Michael Morris, Karen Hwa, as well as the rest of the staff at Cornell University Press responsible for publishing and marketing this book.

Figures 1 and 2. The Harlems. From New York City Guide, American Guide Series, Works Progress Administration (New York: Random House, 1939). Copyright © 1939 by the Guilds’ Committee of the Federal Writers’ Publications Inc.