ABSTRACT
My interest in comparative historical sociological studies of race and ethnicity as an area of research in sore need of theory driven methodological studies stems from numerous sources worthy of mention. First, I was quite fortunate to have two undergraduate teachers at California State University Fresno (CSUF) in the social sciences who exposed me to both comparative race relations and to the history of sociological thought. The first was anthropologist Bill Beatty. By the time I landed in his minority relations class in the early 1970s, Beatty was the school's most distinguished social scientist. He was also the most difficult academically; S. J. Dackawich, my primary mentor and departmental chair, considered Beatty's class to be an informal litmus test to determine if a sociology major had what it took to make it to graduate school.
