ABSTRACT

THE WORLD HAS CHANGED A GREAT DEAL since the long summer of 1971 when I was writing the first edition of The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics (published in April 1972). Some of the goals I set out to promote in that book came to pass. For example, my subtitle announced, “The new political force of the seventies.” It can surely be said that the word “ethnic” (used of white ethnic Catholics, especially from Eastern and Southern Europe) entered public speech at that time, and that by their voting power the newly identified “ethnics” reached out and grabbed the attention of politicians as seldom before.