Raul Perez drops by to talk about this new book, The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy.  Raúl Pérez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of La Verne, and was previously an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Denver. His scholarship has been awarded and supported by the American Sociological Association, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, the Working Class Studies Association, and the American Humor Studies Association. His research has been published in journals such as American Behavioral Scientist, Discourse and Society, Ethnicities, and Sociological Perspectives. His first book, The Souls of White Joke: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy has been recently published by Stanford University Press. His work has also been featured in various media, including The Washington Post, TIME, NBC, AXIOS, The Grio, Remezcla, Latino Rebels, and Zócalo Public Square.

Join Dr. Leland Saito and I as we discuss his new book "Building Los Angeles; The Politics of Race and Place in Urban America.  It is a tale of displacement, gentrification, race, place, and resistance.  

Dr. Leland Saito grew up in Boyle Heights, and then Montebello. Montebello is right next to Monterey Park, and the changes in that city in the 1980s as it went from White to Latino and Asian American, sparked his interest and became his dissertation and first book.

 He went to East Los Angeles Community College and UC Berkeley for his BA, in sociology

He then went to Cal State LA for a high school teaching credential, and an MA in sociology, before completing his PhD in Sociology at UCLA.  Currently he is an associate professor in sociology at the university of southern California and is here to discuss his recently published book “Building Downtown Los Angeles: the Politics of race and place in Urban America. 

His next project is looking at gentrification in the multiracial communities of Leimert Park and USC in South Los Angeles.

Join Dr. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and me as we discuss race and space in historic South Central Los Angeles. Don't believe the hype; this is a story of not just pain and desperation but one of love, hope, and cooperation.  

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo is the Florence Everline Professor of Sociology at USC Dornsife, where she has worked for thirty years. As a qualitative sociologist who relies on interviews and ethnography, Los Angeles and Southern California have provided a rich social setting for developing a research trajectory spanning four areas:  Gender and migration; informal sector work in the immigrant city; religion and immigrant integration; and Latina/o sociology. She has published ten books and over fifty journal articles and book chapters on these topics.   Her most recent book, co-authored with Manuel Pastor, is South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A. (2021). In 2015, she received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, International Migration Section, and in 2018 she received the Julian Samora Distinguished Career Award from the American Sociological Association, Latina/o Sociology Section.