Burdens of Belonging

Race in an Unequal Nation

Jessica Vasquez-Tokos

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781479822324
• eBook ISBN: 9781479822379
• Subtopic: Civics & Citizenship

How systemic racism and settler colonialism shapes the lives of people in the US today

W.E.B. Du Bois famously pondered a question he felt society was asking of him as a Black man in America: "How does it feel to be a problem?" Jessica Vasquez-Tokos uses this question to examine how communities of color are constructed as "problems," and the numerous ramifications this has for their life trajectories. Uncovering how various members of racial groups understand and react to what their racial status means for inclusion in, or exclusion from, the nation, Burdens of Belonging examines the historical underpinnings of the racial-colonial hierarchy, the influence this hierarchy has on lived experience, and how racialized life experience influences the feelings, perspectives and goals of people of color.

Burdens of Belonging is based on interviews with people in Oregon from various racial groups, and brings multiple racial groups' opinions together to weigh in on the ways in which race contours national belonging and affects sense of self, everyday life and wellness, and aspirations for the future. This book highlights the value of inquiring how people from various racial backgrounds perceive their fit in the nation and reveals how race matters to belonging in multifaceted ways.

Filling a gap in research on the everyday effects of accumulated racial disadvantage, Burdens of Belonging brings to the fore an analysis of how racial inequality, settler colonialism, and race relations penetrate multiple layers of social life and become etched into bodies and futures.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Burdens of Belonging
• 1. Constructing a “Problem”: Settler Colonialism, Global Imperialism, and Critical Colonial Consciousness
• 2. Being a “Problem”: Getting the Message, Counternarratives, and Double Consciousness as Intersectional
• 3. On Being “American”: Belonging as Indexed by Race
• 4. White Comfort and Non-White Discomfort: Education’s Multi-Level Messages
• 5. Embodied Burdens: Trauma, Health, and Safety
• 6. Racial Biography and Goal Formation: “Organic Goals” and “Acquired Goals”
• Conclusion: Learning from Burdens to Remedy Inequality
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author