Culturalism: Pluralism, culture, and race in the Harvard encyclopedia of American ethnic groups

Published in 1980, the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups was part of a U.S. discourse of difference which I call “culturalism” that aimed to replace “race” with “culture” ("ethnic group"). The Encyclopedia contributed to a U.S. nation‐building project by denying that race is a powerful social classifier in the United States, removing historical contexts from social groups, reifying ethnic groups and cultures, moralizing about their differences, reducing and simplifying ethnic myths, and denying that telling stories is a social act. The authoritative yet anxious stance of the Encyclopedia reveals contradictions in the political uses of race and culture that it could not contain. Discourses of difference like the one that produced the Encyclopedia continue today to shape public talk about multiculturalism.

Key words:

• multiculturalism
• encyclopedia
• ethnicity
• race
• nationalism
• U.S.