ABSTRACT
Consider how far we have wandered since the civil rights movement focused national attention on one undeniably victimized group: American-born blacks. Armenian-Americans are a protected class in Pasadena, California. Massachusetts includes its large Portuguese immigrant population in its programs. Italian-Americans qualify for affirmative action treatment at the City University of New York. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) wants its contractors to pay special attention to "Hasidic Jewish Americans." Drug addicts and alcoholics are protected under disability laws. A complicated system of race and gender preferences at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination (GLAAD) made it hard for any white males to rise in the organization. While there are sensible ethnic reasons for the shift, it would also mean that indigenous Hawaiians would no longer have to compete for federal benefits in the same racial category as Chinese-Americans and Japanese-Americans.
