Guest editor’s introduction: History of racial and ethnic minority psychology.

Abstract

Michigan State UniversityBeginning with an observation about the neglect of the historyof racial and ethnic minority psychology in our mainstream pub-lications, this Guest Editor’s Introduction to the special issuemoves on to provide a overview of the contributors and their foci.The special issue consists of seven lead articles covering AfricanAmericans, American Indians, Asian Americans, Native Hawai-ians, Hispanic Americans, the American Psychological Associa-tion (APA) Minority Fellowship Program, and the APA Division45. Commentary articles are provided by two pioneers in the fieldand an historian. A rationale for the special issue, as well assuggestions for its use, is also provided.Any cursory review of the leading books about the history ofAmerican psychology will reveal that there has been little or nocoverage regarding the history of racial and ethnic minority psy-chology. Although it is true that the history of this special subfieldof psychology is somewhat shorter than that of mainstream Amer-ican psychology, there have also been important and significantdevelopments in the subfield during the last 5–6 decades. In orderto take advantage of the success of Cultural Diversity and EthnicMinority Psychology (CDEMP ) as the premier journal coveringissues related to racial and ethnic minority psychology, a specialissue focused on the History of Racial and Ethnic Minority Psy-chology was proposed and accepted.The purpose of the special issue is to provide a snapshot of thehistory and development of racial and ethnic minority psychologyin the United States. It will also attempt to link these historicaldescriptions to possible future developments in the field.Although some of this history has already been published indifferent outlets, much of this literature is scattered and oftendifficult to locate [e.g., Leong wrote a monograph on History ofAsian American Psychology for the Asian American Psychologi-cal Association (AAPA) in 1993, but this monograph is not widelycirculated nor readily available]. Therefore, this special issue willprovide a current and systematic treatment of the topic withinCDEMP , which will be readily available for future generations ofpsychologists.The major goal of the special issue is to document some of themajor accomplishments and challenges faced by racial/ethnic mi-nority psychology from an historical perspective (i.e., past 50–60years). The historical review covered by the special issue wouldprovide important lessons for psychology and for historians whoseek to analyze the development of this subfield of psychology. Assuch, this special issue should be of interest to scholars andscientists, as well as students of history and of racial and ethnicminority psychology.In order to provide a scholarly overview of the history of racialand ethnic minority psychology, some of the leading scholars inthe field were invited to prepare an article covering the significantpeople, events, and associations related to their specific racial andethnic minority groups. This resulted in four articles covering thefour major racial and ethnic minority groups, namely AfricanAmericans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and HispanicAmericans. There has been a tendency for the federal government,through it various departments and agencies, to lump Hawaiiansand Pacific Islanders in with Asian Americans for the sake ofconvenience, even though these groups share little in commonexcept their location in the Pacific Ocean. To counter this difficult-to-justify classification, a separate article on the history of NativeHawaiian psychology was included. In addition, the special issuewill also provide an historical overview to two other importantdevelopments in the history of racial and ethnic minority psychol-ogy, namely the APA Minority Fellowship Program and the APASociety for the Psychological Study of Ethnic Minority Issues,Division 45.The article on African American psychology was written by Dr.Bertha Holliday, Senior Director of APA Office of Ethnic Minor-ity Affairs who had authored the History chapter in the Handbookof Racial and Ethnic Minority Psychology (Bernal, Trimble, Bur-lew & Leong, 2003). The article about American Indian psychol-ogy was prepared by Dr. Joseph Trimble, Professor of Psychologyat Western Washington University and Past President of APADivision 45. Professor Trimble, a leading Native American psy-chologist was assisted by Dr. Mary Clearing-Sky, Odama mother,grandmother, and clinical psychologist who practices in FortMeade, South Dakota. Dr. Clearing-Sky is only one of a handful ofNative American clinical psychologists.The article on Asian American psychology was written by Dr.Frederick Leong, Professor of Psychology at Michigan State Uni-versityandPastPresidentofboththeAAPAandtheAPADivision45. He had authored the History monograph for AAPA which wasreproduced in the CD format in his Digital History Project for theAssociation. Dr. Sumie Okazaki, Associate Professor Psychologyat New York University, coauthored this article with Dr. Leongand both of them also prepared the History chapter in the Hand-book of Asian American Psychology (Leong, Inman, Ebreo, Yang,Kinoshita, & Fu, 2007) with E. J. R. David. The Hispanic Amer-ican article was authored by Dr. Amado Padilla, Professor ofEducation at Stanford University and one of the leading pioneersin Hispanic American issues in Psychology and Founder andEditorofthe HispanicJournalofBehavioralSciences. Dr.Esteban