Families on the Fault Line: America's Working Class Speaks about the Family, the Economy, Race, and Ethnicity

Based on nearly 400 interviews with working-class men, women and children of different races and ethnic groups, this book looks at the social, cultural and economic changes of the last two decades, and explores their impact on family life. Lillian B. Rubin shows the reader how much all working-class families - white, black, Latino or Asian - have in common, and in a sociological and psychological analysis, she explores how the failing economy has helped to create seemingly unbridgeable divisions among them. In this context, she argues that the recent rise of white ethnicity has both psychological and political roots, and that the rising demands of minority populations have led whites to try to establish a public identity that would enable them to stand against the claims of race. Lillian Rubin is the author of Worlds of Pain, Intimate Strangers and Just Friends.