David Roediger, professor

David Roediger of the history department at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, he teaches the history of race and class in the United States. We will be discussing his latest book, Working Toward Whiteness, which focuses on the early 20th century to recount how American ethnic groups now considered white, such as Italian-, and Jewish-Americans, once occupied a confused racial status in their new country. Roediger's earlier book, The Wages of Whiteness, is a now-classic text examining similar issues in the 19th century.