The Mexican Outsiders

by Menchaca, Martha

• ISBN13: 9780292751736
• ISBN10: 0292751737
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

People of Mexican descent and Anglo Americans have lived together in the U.S. Southwest for over a hundred years, yet relations between them remain strained, as shown by recent controversies over social services for undocumented aliens in California. In this study, covering the Spanish colonial period to the present day, Martha Menchaca delves deeply into interethnic relations in Santa Paula, California, to document how the residential, social, and school segregation of Mexican-origin people became institutionalized in a representative California town.Menchaca lived in Santa Paula during the 1980s, and interviews with residents add a vivid human dimension to her book. She argues that social segregation in Santa Paula has evolved into a system of social apartness--that is, a cultural system controlled by Anglo Americans that designates the proper times and places where Mexican-origin people can socially interact with Anglos.This first historical ethnographic case study of a Mexican-origin community will be important reading across a spectrum of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, race and ethnicity, Latino studies, and American culture.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Political Relations and Land Tenure Cycles in Santa Paula: Chumash Indians, Mexicans, and Anglo Americans

White Racism, Religious Segregation, and Violence against Mexicans, 1913 to 1930

School Segregation: The Social Reproduction of Inequality, 1870 to 1934

Mexican Resistance to the Peonage System: Movements to Unionize Farm Labor

Movements to Desegregate the Mexican Community, the 1940s and 1950s

The Segmentation of the Farm Labor Market, 1965 to 1976

Interethnic City Council Politics: The Case of the Housing Cooperative Movement

Modern Racism: Social Apartness and the Evolution of a Segregated Society

The Impact of Anglo American Racism on Mexican-Origin Intragroup Relations

Historical Reconstruction

Notes

Bibliography

Index

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