UNLV Sociology Faculty Publications: Ranita Ray

As the Leaves Turn Gold examines the challenges and opportunities around aging for Asian American women and men in the United States. The book looks at a range of Asian Americans affluent and poor, third-generation natives and recent immigrants, political exiles and recent migrants, people who immigrated early in life and those who immigrated late in life and features interview excerpts that bring these issues to life. The book shows how the life courses of individuals, including discrimination they may have faced in earlier years, can shape their golden years. As they grow older, Asian Americans continue to struggle to fit into American society this is true even of those who are highly educated, relatively affluent, and have lived and worked with non-Asian Americans for most of their lives. As the Leaves Turn Gold discusses not only the challenges older Asian Americans face, such as lack of adequate support services, but also local and transnational solutions. As the Leaves Turn Gold is an important examination of aging, immigration, and social inequality."

Stereotypes of economically marginalized black and brown youth focus on drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood.  Families, schools, non-profit organizations, and institutions in poor urban neighborhoods emphasize preventing such "risk behaviors."   In The Making of a Teenage Service Class, Ranita Ray uncovers the pernicious consequences of centering risk behaviors as key to targeting poverty. Having spent three years among sixteen black and Latina/o youth, Ray shares their stories of trying to beat the odds of living in poverty. Their struggles of hunger, homelessness, and untreated illnesses are juxtaposed with the perseverance of completing homework, finding jobs, and spending long hours traveling from work to school to home. By focusing on the lives of youth who largely avoid drugs, gangs, violence, and teen parenthood, the book challenges common wisdom that posits that targeting these "risk behaviors" is key to breaking the cycle of poverty. Ray compellingly demonstrates how the disproportionate emphasis on risk behaviors reinforces class and race hierarchies, and diverts resources that could support marginalized youth's basic necessities and educational and occupational goals.

This book examines the representation of hunger across various media, including canonical literary texts, films, political tracts, social surveys, and nutritional publications. Each essay is invested in the question of how hunger is related to the constitution of modern human collectives, whether these are nationally bound, transnationally itinerant, imperially ordered, or geographically displaced.