Overview

"The young people defined as ""Gen Xers"" in the media and popular imagination almost never include poor or working-class young adults. These young people - a huge and important part of our society - are misrepresented and silent in our national conversation. In The Unknown City, Michelle Fine and Lois Weis offer a groundbreaking, theoretically sophisticated ethnography of the lives of young adults (ages 23 to 35), based on hundreds of interviews. We discover their views on everything from the construction of ""whiteness"" and affirmative action to the economy, education, and new public spaces of community hope. Finally, Fine and Weis point to what is being done and what should be done in terms of national policy to improve the future of these remarkable women and men."

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9780807041130

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Reviews

An important book . . . that enhance[s] our understanding of race, class, and gender in late twentieth-century urban America. --William Julius Wilson, author of Poverty in America <br> Fine and Weis write with grace and clarity, presenting the powerful voices of oppressed people. . . . The Unknown City is a model of social analysis that points the way towards justice and social transformation. --Manning Marable, author of The Crisis of Color and Democracy <br> Without preaching, [Fine and Weis] give readers a sense of the obstacles faced by Americans who must do without. . . Offers important insights into a critical but too often overlooked part of our youth culture. -- Kirkus Reviews <br> [A] powerful, passionate, and subtle book. . . . [Fine and Weis's] honest and self-reflective account constitutes an inspiring-if sobering-model of scholarship deployed in the interest of social justice. --Michael B. Katz, author of Improving Poor People <br> Michelle Fine and Lois Weis e

An important book . . . that enhance[s] our understanding of race, class, and gender in late twentieth-century urban America. --William Julius Wilson, author of Poverty in America Fine and Weis write with grace and clarity, presenting the powerful voices of oppressed people. . . . The Unknown City is a model of social analysis that points the way towards justice and social transformation. --Manning Marable, author of The Crisis of Color and Democracy Without preaching, [Fine and Weis] give readers a sense of the obstacles faced by Americans who must do without. . . Offers important insights into a critical but too often overlooked part of our youth culture. --Kirkus Reviews [A] powerful, passionate, and subtle book. . . . [Fine and Weis's] honest and self-reflective account constitutes an inspiring-if sobering-model of scholarship deployed in the interest of social justice. --Michael B. Katz, author of Improving Poor People Michelle Fine and Lois Weis enable us to hear the sounds of despair interwoven with hope, with outrage, with new kinds of determination. . . . The Unknown City calls out to its readers for new modes of solidarity, for the kind of theory that may infuse activism. --Maxine Greene, author of Releasing the Imagination

An ambitious look at those members of Generation X who are too often ignored - the poor and working classes. Fine (Social Psychology/CUNY Graduate Center; coauthor with Lani Guinier of Becoming Gentlemen, not reviewed) and Weis (Sociology/SUNY, Buffalo) split their survey sample three ways: by location, race, and gender. The authors conducted dozens of interviews with members of the underclasses of Buffalo, NY, and Jersey City, NJ, cities that have suffered a great loss of industry in the past few generations and therefore endure high levels of poverty and unemployment. Fine and Weis separated their sample into white, Latino, and black subsamples and male and female subsections, taking several chapters to address issues that are specific to each gender/racial group, regardless of the city. They comment that violence is a concern for all, although the type of violence varies from group to group. Females view domestic violence as a primary problem. White men consider neighborhood violence - particularly as perpetrated by non-whites - to be the principal violence they must resist. However, black and Latino men regard systemic state violence (e.g., police brutality) as their foe. Fine and Weis draw few absolute conclusions in their complex work. They are able to generalize that while race, class and gender are socially constructed, they are also so deeply ingrained in one's identity that, for instance, readers can't not know even an 'anonymous' informant's racial group - a conclusion they did not predict. Without preaching, they give readers a sense of the obstacles faced by Americans who must do without. This bleak and often poignant volume offers important insights into a critical but too often overlooked part of our youth culture. (Kirkus Reviews)

An important book . . . that enhance[s] our understanding of race, class, and gender in late twentieth-century urban America. --William Julius Wilson, author of Poverty in America <br><br> Fine and Weis write with grace and clarity, presenting the powerful voices of oppressed people. . . . The Unknown City is a model of social analysis that points the way towards justice and social transformation. --Manning Marable, author of The Crisis of Color and Democracy <br><br> Without preaching, [Fine and Weis] give readers a sense of the obstacles faced by Americans who must do without. . . Offers important insights into a critical but too often overlooked part of our youth culture. -- Kirkus Reviews <br><br> [A] powerful, passionate, and subtle book. . . . [Fine and Weis's] honest and self-reflective account constitutes an inspiring-if sobering-model of scholarship deployed in the interest of social justice. --Michael B. Katz, author of Improving Poor People <br><br> Michelle Fine and Lois Weis enable us to hear the sounds of despair interwoven with hope, with outrage, with new kinds of determination. . . . The Unknown City calls out to its readers for new modes of solidarity, for the kind of theory that may infuse activism. --Maxine Greene, author of Releasing the Imagination

Author Information

Michelle Fine is professor of social psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Lois Weis is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at the State University of New York, Buffalo. The research was funded by a major grant from the Spencer Foundation.

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