Race and Ethnicity – Traveling with Twain | Page 5

Race and Ethnicity

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), like many Americans before and after him, struggled to overcome his disdain for the Other–African Americans, Irish, Chinese and other newly arrived immigrants, and Native Americans. This project focuses on interviewing a wide variety of Americans on issues of race and ethnicity, in anticipation of the 2012 presidential election, during which America’s first African-American president will be seeking re-election.

Posts in Race and Ethnicity

Cincinnati: A city of immigrants and free African Americans

Cincinnati: A city of immigrants and free African Americans

For the two hours we have to spend in Cincinnati we focus on food and a photo. The photo, an amazing 1848 daguerreotype view from across the Ohio River, details two miles of the Cincinnati waterfront … Read more >>

Cincinnati, OH November 21, 2011 Featured Immigration Stories More...

A long drive—but with stops for an old friend, a memorial, and a dying industry town

A long drive—but with stops for an old friend, a memorial, and a dying industry town

Today’s Washington-to-Pittsburgh drive is a typical dawn-to-dusk Twain-tripper—drive three hours, interview someone, drive half an hour, visit a national memorial, drive two hours, walk a town, drive an hour, stop for the night. But the someone … Read more >>

Pittsburgh, PA November 20, 2011 Featured Race and Ethnicity

Mexican-American Washington Post videographer connects with

Mexican-American Washington Post videographer connects with “others”

Evelio Contreras, a Washington Post videographer, grew up in Eagle Pass, Texas, across the Rio Grande from Piedras Negras, Mexico, “with a divided understanding” of himself. He was a first-generation Mexican American with, he said, a … Read more >>

Washington, D.C. November 19, 2011 Featured Immigration Stories More...

Joanna Hernandez, president of Unity, tackles challenge of diversity in newsrooms

Joanna Hernandez, president of Unity, tackles challenge of diversity in newsrooms

Joanna Hernandez, multiplatform editor of The Washington Post, grew up in the projects of New York, then moved to Hell’s Kitchen, once a gritty midtown Manhattan neighborhood of walk-ups that “West Side Story” made famous. Her … Read more >>

Washington, D.C. November 18, 2011 Featured Gender Identity More...

Maitre d' bans us from dining room for wearing jeans

Maitre d’ bans us from dining room for wearing jeans

Before our interview of William A. Davis, Jr., president of Davis Property Ventures, Inc., he kindly invited the three of us to his club, the University Club of Washington, D.C., for breakfast. Upon entering the Taft … Read more >>

Washington, D.C. November 17, 2011 Race and Ethnicity

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Featured Content from Race and Ethnicity

What Julie Pham learned managing a Vietnamese newspaper in the Pacific Northwest

One day, an elderly Vietnamese man walked into the office of Người Việt Tây Bắc. He wanted to place a classified ad in the largest and oldest newspaper for Vietnamese immigrants in Washington. Julie Pham, 33, … Read more >>

From the Mekong to the Mississippi

On the fortieth anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, Vietnamese immigrants and their children gathered alongside Vietnam War veterans to reflect on the dramatic events that forever changed both of their destinies—the siege of South Vietnam’s … Read more >>

Natalie Sheppard discusses being a black Mormon in the Salt Lake City area

Of all the cities and towns on Mark Twain’s route west that we visited, Salt Lake City honors him least. The city’s magnificent main library, a 240,000-sq.-ft., five-story-tall curved wedge-shaped beauty by Moshe Safdie and other … Read more >>

We drove through memorable-monikered Louisiana towns to get to a "graffiti board" in Little Rock

After a full day of interviewing at Louisiana State Penitentiary, we shot north toward Arkansas through Louisiana towns with memorable monikers: Tallulah (not named for the actress), Water Proof and Transylvania (an enormous black bat adorns … Read more >>

Ben Jaffe, heir to Preservation Hall, philosophizes about New Orleans jazz

I am listening to an intense, muscular Ben Jaffe, 40, creative director of Preservation Hall Jazz Band, talk slowly and thoughtfully about his New Orleans, his brow furrowed, his sprouting Jewfro tied behind his head. But … Read more >>