We stand on the shoulders of giants. This is a statement that crisply and succinctly conveys the humility and debt of gratitude that we owe our scholarly predecessors. Many of us have heard this expression as a general homage to the contribution of others. This motto is also emblazoned on the main page of Google Scholar, which tips us off to its special relevance to the realms of research and scholarship. As John of Salisbury noted in 1159:
Our own generation enjoys the legacy bequeathed to it by that which preceded it. We frequently know more, not because we have moved ahead by our own natural ability, but because we are supported by the [mental] strength of others, and possess riches that we have inherited from our forefathers. Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to [puny] dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature (as cited in McGarry Reference McGarry1955, 167).
This inaugural issue of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (JREP) has been over two decades in the making. As we sent out our call for submissions in December 2014, we stood on the shoulders of many previous efforts to raise the profile of political science research on race, indigeneity, immigration, and ethnicity. As Tony Affigne noted in a 2014 article in Politics, Groups, and Identities, political science was, for a long time, a discipline that was inhospitable to the study of race (Affigne Reference Affigne2014). Early leaders in political science, from founders like John W. Burgess to other towering figures like Frank Goodnow and Woodrow Wilson, used research in the service of explicitly racist ideas and policies. Even after the heyday of the Civil Rights movement, scholarship by (and scholarship about) Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and multiracials remained marginal to the discipline. It was only after the creation of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS) in 1969 and the inauguration of the Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (REP) section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in 1995 that political science research on race became more firmly institutionalized.
Of course, the creation of a section was not, in and of itself, sufficient to raise the visibility and legitimacy of political science scholarship on race and ethnicity. Awards like the APSA's Ralph J. Bunche Book Award, as well as various book, article, dissertation, and service awards by the REP section certainly made a difference. At the same time, research in race and ethnicity retained a curious place in the discipline. For example, many departments did not know how to evaluate political science publications that were getting published in interdisciplinary journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies, International Migration Review, and American Indian Quarterly. In addition, many excellent articles were getting rejected from flagship political science journals because their work was seen as too narrow, and scholars who managed to publish in such journals were encouraged to frame their scholarship in ways that would appeal to mainstream audiences.
One of the central goals of our enterprise, then, is to have an official section journal of the APSA—like Legislative Studies Quarterly, Politics & Gender, Political Behavior, and Journal of Experimental Political Science—that is seen as a strong subfield journal producing the best work in the study of REP. In that vein, I am thrilled to invite you to read these illuminating and thought-provoking research articles that make up our inaugural issue: First, Rita Kaur Dhamoon engages in a critical analysis of representations of genocide in the Canadian context, and specifically with respect to the development of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. Next, Bernard Fraga and Julie Lee Merseth examine the causal impacts of language assistance provision on Latino and Asian American voting; followed by Eric Gonzalez Juenke and Paru Shah who find innovative ways to test long-held beliefs about the performance of minority candidates in predominantly white districts. Next, Scott Huffmon, H. Gibbs Knotts, and Seth McKee use the unique circumstances of the 2014 elections in South Carolina—which featured three Republican statewide incumbents from different racial backgrounds—to assess the extent to which nonwhites may still experience an electoral penalty in the South.
Our final set of research articles tackles important concepts in the literature on race and politics in the American context. First, Claudine Gay, Jennifer Hochschild, and Ariel White that examine the extent to which the concept of linked fate does, or does not, travel across racial groups and across other dimensions of group identity such as gender, class, and religion, while Eric McDaniel, Irfan Nooruddin, and Allyson Shortle examine the shrinking attitudinal divide between patriots and nationalists following the September 11 attacks. These articles provide just a preview of the kinds of compelling research that we will feature in our journal, ranging in topical focus from political theory and political behavior to American institutions and comparative politics, and in approaches from critical studies and qualitative methods to statistical analysis and experimental work.
In addition to being a place for high-quality research articles on race, this journal is also a place for scholars to provide single-monograph book reviews as well as synthetic reviews that draw together several publications in a given topic. We hope that our focus on race, ethnicity, indigeneity, and immigration—as well as intersections with other axes of identity and marginalization—will open up a wider array of works being considered for book reviews and will provide a deeper level of topical engagement than we would find in more general publications. Tony Affigne is the book review editor for our journal and we look forward to several review pieces in our inaugural volume's second issue. Finally, JREP is also innovating in other ways, such as providing a regular “Q&A Feature” with leaders in the world of politics and policy, as we seek to make our scholarship more timely and relevant than ever. We are happy to inaugurate our first issue with a conversation featuring State Senator Ricardo Lara (D-CA), a pioneer on immigration policy and a role model for LGBTs of color.
In addition to the work of various authors in this inaugural issue, there is a lot of hidden labor that has gone into the launch of this journal, and to the production of this first volume. First, a big thanks to the scores of anonymous reviewers who have lent their time and expertise to this journal. Thanks also to past and current chairs of the REP section for their unwavering enthusiasm for creating a section journal and for patiently pushing this initiative through several hoops: Paula Mohan, Pei-te Lien, Michael Jones-Correa, Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, Anna Sampaio, Andy Aoki, Ange-Marie Hancock, and John García. A special note of thanks to Jane Junn for heading up the steering committee that researched the market opportunity for a section journal, and to Matt Barreto, Zoltan Hajnal, Vince Hutchings, Julia Jordan-Zachery, and Tyson King-Meadows for their work on the committee report. The REP section membership overwhelmingly voted to move forward with a journal proposal, and Anna Sampaio, Tony Affigne, and I are grateful to Gillian Greenough and the rest of the team at Cambridge Journals for helping make this vision a reality. Finally, our journal draws from the generous and tireless efforts of associate editors Michael Javen Fortner, Michael Jones Correa, Sheryl Lightfoot, and Dara Strolovitch; book review editor Tony Affigne; editorial assistants Allan Colbern and Danielle Lemi; and our illustrious editorial board.
We thank you for your enthusiastic support for this journal and we are excited to see what lies ahead.
