ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the importance of race and ethnicity in American politics– the decisions about who gets what, when, where, and how–in general and in the politics of the four principal racial minority groups in the United States: blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Indian peoples in particular. In 1919, citizenship was granted to American Indians who had served in the US armed forces in World War I. It was not until the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, however, that citizenship was conferred on all American Indian peoples. Although citizenship denial was the most egregious in the cases of blacks and Indian peoples, an exclusion purposely crafted in the Constitution and upheld by the Supreme Court, other racial groups faced similar situations as they entered the United Status.
