This book focuses on two dilemmas of American politics. The first, which dates back to the founding of the country, asks how the nation reconciles its professed democracy and the actual denial of basic rights and privileges to minorities, a dilemma of reality versus rhetoric. The second is the consideration of the strategy that minorities should use in dealing with other minorities and with the majority group. The book addresses the importance of race and ethnicity in American politics in general and in the politics of the four principal racial minorities: African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans. These groups are distinguished from other minorities in that each has a history of discrimination and a later history of legal attempts to remedy the effects of it. Chapters include: (1) "America's Dilemmas"; (2) "Resources and Status of America's Racial Minorities"; (3) "America's Racial Minorities in the Contemporary Political System: Actors"; (4) "America's Racial Minorities and the Policymaking Process"; (5) "Coalition or Competition? Patterns of Interminority Group Relations"; and (6) "Will We 'All Get Along?'" Race is an enduring piece of the American political fabric; whether we can all get along remains in doubt. (Contains 4 maps, 21 tables, and 188 references.) (SLD)