Race and Gender in the Politics of Group Formation: A Comment on Notions of Multiculturalism

West as a place where diverse peoples were thrown together by cycles of conquest and migration, and where through relations of domination and exclusion as well as cooperation, indigenous populations, Hispanics, Anglos, and Asians fashioned a multicultural and multiracial society. The heterogeneity of society in the American West makes the study of women in the West an ideal place to explore theoretical issues bearing on the connections between race and gender in multicultural settings. As a feminist concerned with the pressing need to address the differences among women and to cement ties across racial and cultural as well as class barriers, I am persuaded by these papers that western women's history is fertile ground for exploring these vital issues. But as an outsider to this field and someone who hopes to garner from it a model for wider application, I found myself asking as I read these fascinating and descriptively rich accounts: how will a more generalizable understanding of the relationship between race and gender emerge from these case studies? Although these papers suggest many intriguing connections, key arguments linking the crucial terms in the analysis remain unarticulated.