This book examines the increasing marginalization of and response by people living in urban
areas throughout the Western Hemisphere and both the local and global implications of
continued colonial racial hierarchies and the often-dire consequences they have for people
perceived as different. However in the aftermath of recent U.S. elections whiteness also
seems to embody strictures on religion ethnicity country of origin and almost any other
personal characteristic deemed suspect at the moment. For that reason gender race and even
class collectively may not be sufficient units of analysis to study the marginalizing
mechanisms of the urban center. The authors interrogate the social and institutional structures
that facilitate the disenfranchisement or downward trajectory of groups and their potential or
subsequent lack of access to mainstream rewards. The book also seeks to highlight examples
where marginalized groups have found ways to assert their equality. No recenttexts have
attempted to connect the mechanisms of marginality across geographical and political boundaries
within the Western Hemisphere.
