What constitutes a people? Persistent Peoples draws on enduring groups from around the world to identify and analyse the phenomenon of cultural enclavement. While race, homeland, or language are often considered to be determining factors, the authors of these articles demonstrate a more basic common denominator: a continuity of common identity in resistance to absorption by a dominant surrounding culture.

George Pierre Castile has studied the Tarascans of western Mexico, focusing on the problems of adaptation to outside forces. He has also done fieldwork among American Indians of the southwestern and northwestern United States, with special emphasis on the ethnohistory of northwestern groups. His publications include North American Indians: An Introduction to the Chichimeca and Cherán: La adaptación de una comunidad tradicional de Michoacán. He became associate professor of anthropology at Whitman College in 1978.

Gilbert Kushner has conducted research in Israel focused on directed change in an administered community of immigrants from India. His research in the United States has been concerned with ethnic identity and applied anthropology. He is the author of Immigrants from India in Israel: Planned Change in an Administered Community (University of Arizona Press). Professor of anthropology since 1970 at the University of South Florida, he became chairperson of the department in 1971 and was associate dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences from 1972 to 1978.