Stanford University Press Blog

This summer season: a look at the folks behind the motel counter

Well, technically it was yesterday, but happy first day of summer! To mark the Summer Solstice and all the glorious things summer brings—weekend trips to the beach, the happy sound of crickets chirping, lazy picnics with watermelon and red ants—we bring you our favorite vacation-related fact of the season:

Half of all U.S. motels are owned by Indian Americans. What’s more, the vast majority of them have immigrated from the same region in India, and even share the same surname Patel (though that doesn’t mean they are related).

In his book Life Behind the Lobby: Indian American Motel Owners and the American Dream, Oberlin College sociologist and Smithsonian Institute curator Pawan Dhingra takes a closer look at this phenomenon, which has easily—though perhaps mistakenly—been cited as a model example of the American Dream. Check out this Wall Street Journal interview with Professor Dhingra on the subject. Voice of America also wrote a news story on Dhingra’s work, as did Colorlines, Indiawest, and IndUS Business Journal.

 

And other summer- and vacation- related facts you weren't aware you wanted to know : 

Take it easy: Kicking back with a beer is a simple pleasure in life that also makes you more all the more tantalizing and delicious smelling to mosquitoes. 

On the origins of summer vacation: Summer vacation wasn’t universal in American schools until 1840, when educational reformer Horace Mann cited then-current medical theory that “overstimulating young minds would lead to nervous disorders or insanity.” A break during the hottest months also was thought to reduce the spread of disease.

Travel stats: New Jersey has the highest percentage of residents with passports (68.36%), and Mississippi has the lowest (19.86%). 

Hold on to your seats! It was a threat for a while, but it seems to be ok now: British budget airliner Ryanair’s infamous attempt to roll out planes with $10 standing room “seats” seems to have been foiled by safety regulators. 

 

 

Prize-Winning Beach Reading for the Intellectually Curious

Looking for something to fill that beloved L. L. Bean tote bag you haul to the beach every summer?  Look no further!  SUP's summer reading list has something for every taste:

 

 Sure it might take up most of the space in your beach bag, but according to the WaPo Book World's "10 Books We've Loved This Year," James Hershberg's Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam is worth it!

  We also recommend:

 Ottomans, Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine, by Michelle U. Campos, winner of the 2011 National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Culture, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council.

 Shiping Hua's Chinese Utopianism: A Comparative Study of Reformist Thought with Japan and Russia, 1898-1997, winner of the 2011 Distinguished Research and Publication Award, sponsored by the Association of Chinese Professors in Social Sciences (USA).    

 
Shahla Talebi's Ghosts of Revolution: Rekindled Memories of Imprisonment in Iran, co-winner (Gold Medal) of the the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards (Autobiography/Memoir Category), sponsored by the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and Honorable Mention, for Biography & Autobiography, in the 2011 PROSE Awards (PSP Awards for Excellence), sponsored by the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers.           

 Marisa Abrajano's Campaigning to the New American Electorate:  Advertising to Latino Voters, winner of the 2011 Best Book on Latino Politics Award, sponsored by the APSA Latino Caucus.           

  Larry Wolff, The Idea of Galicia: History and Fantasy in Hapsburg Political Culture, winner of the 2012 Karl von Vogelsang Staatspreis, sponsored by the Bundesministerium fuer Wissenschaft und Forschung. 

The Battle for China:  Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945, edited by Mark Peattie, Edward Drea, and Hans van de Ven, winner of the 2012 Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award (non-US category), sponsored by The Society for Military History.

 John Richardson and Justin Powell's Comparing Special Education: Origins to Contemporary Paradoxes, winner of the 2012 Outstanding Book Award Contemporary Issues in Curriculum category), sponsored by the AERA Division B.

 Richard Graham's Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil, winner of the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by the Brazilian Studies Association.            

 Erik Kuhonta's book The Institutional Imperative: The Politics of Equitable Development in Southeast Asia, shortlisted for the 2012 Comparative Politics Prize, sponsored by the Canadian Political Science Association.           

 Robert Rhoads and Katalin Szelényi's Global Citizenship and the University: Advancing Social Life and Relations in an Interdependent World, winner of the 2012 Outstanding Publication Award, sponsored by the AERA Division J.          

Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo by Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, winner of the 2012 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, sponsored by the ASA Labor and Labor Movements Section.

The low down on Egypt's presidential elections

This Saturday, Egypt will hold the final round of its first presidential elections since ex-President Mubarak stepped down in 2011—and the media is rife with speculation on how it will go.

In this podcast by news blog The Arabist, four Egypt scholars—including our recent author Joshua Stacher—sit down to tell us what we need to know about the unfolding events in Egypt and what the U.S. has to do with it.

The conclusion is a bit of a downer: no matter what happens this weekend, there’s not going to be a dramatic change from authoritarianism to democracy in Egypt. In other words, don’t hold your breath for a radical shift to democracy.

Joshua Stacher, who teaches and researches Middle Eastern politics at Kent State University, chalks this up to Egypt’s centralized political power structure—aka its executive autonomy, which has given the political elite the flexibility to navigate the revolution surprisingly well. In his latest book Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria, Stacher shows that Egypt is actually experiencing a relatively swift and smooth transfer of power—especially in comparison to nearby Syria, a decentralized system of power, which is struggling through a full-scale civil war as its president hangs on.

For those confused by what we should think of the unfolding events in the Arab world, Stacher puts it this way: the past defines the present. Why did Egypt experience an uprising remarkably less bloody than the one in Syria? The answer may be in the countries’ political structures: Egypt’s political structure is significantly more centralized than Syria's, and that makes a world of difference when it comes to how a regime change will play out. 

In that case…if the past defines the present, and today is tomorrow’s past... then we’ll be anxiously watching out for how the Egyptian elections turn out this weekend.

 

In the meantime, read an excerpt from Stacher’s book.

Check out more information about Stacher’s book Adaptable Autocrats. 

Listen to some nuggets from the podcast:

• What the possible legal dissolution of the parliament means for the elections (around 13:00)
• Speculation on the election’s outcomes (around 16:00)
• What potential the revolution still has to achieve its demands (from 21:50)
• Josh Stacher speaks on the role of the U.S. in Egypt—and how U.S. policy supports the counterrevolutionaries (from 34:30). For more on this topic, see this interview hosted by Stacher.
• About that anti-spy video aired on Egyptian televisions… (from 52:28)