Racial Uncertainties: Mexican Americans, School Desegregation, and the Making of Race in Post-Civil Rights America Volume 68

Mexican American racial uncertainty has long been a defining feature of US racial understanding. Were Mexican Americans white or nonwhite? In the post-civil rights period, this racial uncertainty took on new meaning as the courts, the federal bureaucracy, local school officials, parents, and community activists sought to turn Mexican American racial identity to their own benefit. This is the first book that examines the pivotal 1973 Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1 Supreme Court ruling, and how debates over Mexican Americans' racial position helped reinforce the emerging tropes of colorblind racial ideology.

In the post-civil rights era, when overt racism was no longer socially acceptable, anti-integration voices utilized the indeterminacy of Mexican American racial identity to frame their opposition to school desegregation. That some Mexican Americans adopted these tropes only reinforced the strength of colorblindness in battles against civil rights in the 1970s.

Author: Danielle R. Olden
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 10/18/2022
Pages: 298
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.15lbs
Size: 9.10h x 5.90w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9780520343344
ISBN10: 0520343344
BISAC Categories:
- History | North American
- Social Science | Race & Ethnic Relations
- Social Science | Ethnic Studies | American | Hispanic American Studies

About the Author
Danielle R. Olden is Associate Professor of History at the University of Utah.