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Diversityland

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Fort Bend County, Texas, looks like the America we claim to want: a suburb where Black, White, Asian, and Latinx families share cul-de-sacs, schools, and celebrations. Residents trade dishes, honor...
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  • 18 August 2026
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Fort Bend County, Texas, looks like the America we claim to want: a suburb where Black, White, Asian, and Latinx families share cul-de-sacs, schools, and celebrations. Residents trade dishes, honor one another's traditions, and take pride in their community's diversity. Yet beneath this harmony lies what sociologist Kiara Wyndham calls "the diversity contract"—an unspoken agreement that racial diversity may be celebrated, but racial inequality must not be named. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research and more than 150 interviews, Diversityland reveals how the language of inclusion can obscure enduring racial hierarchy. In Fort Bend and communities like it, White advantage adapts to diversity rather than disappearing. Vivid and deeply researched, Diversityland transforms how we understand suburban life and challenges foundational narratives of what racial progress will look like in 21st century America.

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Price: $29.95
Pages: 278
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date: 18 August 2026
Trim Size: 8.50 X 5.50 in
ISBN: 9780520404274
Format: Paperback
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Kiara Wyndham is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Contents

List of Illustrations and Tables
Acknowledgments

Introduction
1. Setting the Stage
2. Race, Class, and Place
3. The Diversity Contract
4. Getting Political: The Diversity Contract and Local Politics
5. Hidden in Plain Sight: The Diversity Contract in Local Governments
6. Why the Diversity Contract?
7. Breaking Through the Facade

Methodological Appendix
Notes
References
Index