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Examines how Mexican Americans experienced "unofficial" Jim Crow inside and outside the American education system, and how they used the courts, Mexican Consul, and other resources to challenge that discrimination.
In The Other American Dilemma, Rubén Donato and Jarrod Hanson examine the experiences of Mexican immigrants, Mexican Americans, and Hispanos/as in their schools and communities between 1912 and 1953. Drawing from the Mexican Archives located in Mexico City and by venturing outside of the Southwest, their examinations of specific communities in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, and Texas shed new light on Mexicans' social and educational experiences. Donato and Hanson maintain that Mexicans-whether recent immigrants, American citizens, or Hispanos/as with deep roots in the United States-were not seen as true Americans and were subject to unofficial school segregation and Jim Crow. The book highlights similarities and differences between the ways the Mexican-origin population and African Americans were treated. Because of their mestizo heritage, the Mexican-origin population was seen as racially mixed and kept on the margins of community and school life by people in power.
"The Other American Dilemma makes two significant contributions to conversations taking place among scholars of Latinx and Mexican American studies and history and historians of American foreign relations … The Other American Dilemma reminds us that we need to be attentive to the nuances in race formation taking place in our multi-racial and -ethnic society if we hope to be successful in our efforts to dismantle systemic racism." — Society for U.S. Intellectual History
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Francisco Maestas et al. v. George H. Shone et al., 1912–1914
(with Gonzalo Guzmán)
2. "Porque teni´an sangre de 'NEGROS,' " 1915–1916
3. "In These Towns Mexicans Are Classified as Negroes," 1915–1935
4. Diplomatic Relations to School Segregation and Jim Crow
5. Legally White, Socially "Mexican," 1930–1947
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index