L&HR 31:2 (May 2013)

Law and History Review’s 31:2 issue (May 2013) is up on the Cambridge Journals website.  Here are the articles

Protective Labor Legislation in the Courts: Substantive Due Process and Fairness in the Progressive Era, by Claudio J. Katz

Constitutional Principle, Partisan Calculation, and the Beveridge Child Labor Bill, by Logan Everett Sawyer

“Equals of the White Man”: Prosecution of Settlers for Violence Against Aboriginal Subjects of the Crown, Colonial Western Australia, by Amanda Nettelbeck

Jews or Germans? Nationality Legislation and the Restoration of Liberal Democracy in Western Europe after the Holocaust, by David Fraser and Frank Caestecker

“Our Militancy is in Our Openness”: Gay Employment Rights Activism in California and the Question of Sexual Orientation in Sex Equality Law, by Katherine Turk

Book reviews after the jump.
Read more »

America at a Glance

The New York Times has extracted data from the Census Bureau's 2005-2009 American Community Survey in order to compose a map displaying the racial, socioeconomic, and educational composition of the U.S.  In terms of income distribution, there is a high density of Americans earning over $200,000 in the Northeast.  For instance, more than 15% of the population in Hunterdon, New Jersey, Fairfield, Connecticut, and Westchester, New York earn over $200,000.  Another map illustrating the percentage of foreign born residents shows a high concentration throughout much of California, southern Arizona, south and southwest Texas, and southern Florida.  Additionally,  New York City and the region surrounding it possesses a high percentage of foreign born residents. 

Asian Americans and Identity

Data from the Pew Research Center demonstrate how different Asian American groups identify themselves.  Overall, 62% of all Asian Americans usually describe themselves by articulating their country of origin.  19% refer to themselves as Asians or Asian Americans, and 14% identify simply as Americans.  

Between Asian groups, however, there is some variation in the ways individuals identify.  About three quarters of both the Vietnamese and Korean populations identify with their country of origin.  Indian, Chinese, and Japanese Americans exhibit the smallest percentage of individuals who identify with their country of origin (six in ten).

Another way to look at the data is by distinguishing the foreign born population of Asian Americans from the native born population of Asian Americans.  Among the foreign born, seven in ten identify with their country of origin, while only four in ten in the native born population will do the same.  Conversely, a mere 9% of foreign born Asians describe themselves as American, but 28% of the native born call themselves as American.

Minorities Now Account for The Majority of Births in the U.S.

This past Thursday, the Census Bureau announced that white births now account for less than half of all births in the United States.  For the first time, minorities account for the majority of births (50.4%).  Dr. William H. Frey, SSDAN Director and senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, explained, “This is an important tipping point.”  He described the trend as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.  Sabrina Tavernise of The New York Times writes that Hispanics, blacks, and Asians accounted for 26%, 15%, and 4% respectively of births in the year ending in July 2011.  Still, though, whites represent 49.6% of all births – the single largest share of any ethnicity.  Dr. Frey also discovered another interesting fact: minorities accounted for a whopping 92 percent of all population growth in the decade ending in 2010.  You can read the full New York Times article here, which goes more into detail on historical implications and on what else may have contributed to this fascinating trend.

Median Weekly Earnings by Age, Race and Ethnicity, Sex

The Editor's Desk, a publication from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), summarized a report on weekly earnings of wage and salary workers in the fourth quarter of 2011. The size of the gap between men and women in median weekly earnings varied by age, race and ethnicity, but at every level, men out-earned women.