In this collection of essays, Philip Gleason explores the different linguistic tools that American scholars have used to write about ethnicity in the United States and analyzes how various vocabularies have played out in the political sphere. In doing this, he reveals tensions between terms used by academic groups and those preferred by the people whom the academics discuss. Gleason unpacks words and phrases-such as melting pot and plurality-used to visualize the multitude of ethnicities in the United States. And he examines debates over concepts such as "assimilation," "national character,"...