Ethnopolitical Entrepreneurs

Book excerpt: Ethnopolitical Entrepreneurs presents the story of the Armenians of Glendale, California. Coming from Argentina, Armenia, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Russia, Syria, and many other countries, this group is internally fragmented and often has limited experience with the American political system. Nonetheless, Glendale's Armenians have rapidly mobilized and remade an American suburban space in their own likeness. In telling their story, Daniel Fittante expands our understanding of US political history. From the late nineteenth-century onward, Irish, Italian, Jewish, and several other immigrant populations in large American cities began changing the country's political reality. The author shows how Glendale's Armenians—as well as many other immigrants—are now changing the country's political reality within its dynamic, multiethnic suburbs. The processes look different in various suburban contexts, but the underlying narrative holds: immigrant populations converge on suburban areas and ambitious political actors develop careers by driving coethnics' political incorporation.