Editor's Note Miguel A. Carranza

This issue of the journal contains a variety of articles which are related yet diverse in their focus on topics concerning ethnic studies. In the first article, David Hood and Ruey-Lin Lin extend previous research on sentencing disparities in the state of Washington for Hispanics, Native Americans and Whites. Even after the creation of the Sentencing Reform Act, a decade later, sentencing disparities exist. In her research on the Los Angeles riots of 1992, Theresa Martinez analyzes the role of rap music as being a reflection and/or cause of inner city despair, hopelessness and anger. Suzanne Ortega and John Shafer investigate ethnic group differences regarding familism, filial responsibility and attitudes toward the elderly. Their findings suggest the existence of important cultural differences among various ethnic groups, although not consistent with common depictions of traditional ethnic "familism." In a related study, Karen Leonard examines the relationship between intermarriage and ethnicity in Punjabi Mexican Ameri can, Mexican Japanese and Filipino American biethnic communities. She concludes that second generation biethnic members evidenced considerable difficulty regarding ethnic identity and cultural pluralism, especially when impacted by the continued influx of "new" immigrants. I am pleased to give special recognition to the article by Deborah Faltis. Faltis is the inaugural recipient of a first place award in the newly established NAES Student Paper Competition. Her paper on language policy and lan guage repression compares the experiences of Spanish Basques and Mexican Americans. Her study highlights the stifling impact the "English Only" Movement and other similar organizations have had on bilingual education and multicultural education efforts. The Association hopes other under graduate and graduate students will participate in future annual Student Paper Competitions. We have included in this issue abstracts from our most recent national conference. This will be the last time we will include a collection of conference abstracts. Hereafter, the conference abstracts will be printed and made available at the conference where they are actually being presented. The new procedure makes the abstracts more readily available and, hope fully, more useful to conference participants in a timely manner. Finally, this issue includes a cumulative index for Volumes 10-16 (1987 -1993) of Explora tion in Ethnic Studies. It has been some time since such an index of the journal was compiled. It is our intention to continue to publish an annual or biannual cumulative index in the future.