How race is made in America : immigration, citizenship, and the historical power of racial scripts /

Molina, Natalia,

How race is made in America : immigration, citizenship, and the historical power of racial scripts / Natalia Molina. - Berkeley : University of California Press, (c)2014. - 1 online resource (xv, 207 pages) : illustrations. - American crossroads ; 38 .

Includes bibliographies and index.

Placing Mexican immigration within the larger landscape of race relations in the U.S. -- "What is a white man?" : the quest to make Mexicans ineligible for U.S. citizenship -- Birthright citizenship beyond black and white -- Mexicans suspended in a state of deportability : medical racialization and immigration policy in the 1940s -- Deportations in the urban landscape -- Epilogue: making race in the twenty-first century.

"How Race Is Made in America examines Mexican Americans--from 1924, when American law drastically reduced immigration into the United States, to 1965, when many quotas were abolished--to understand how broad themes of race and citizenship are constructed. These years shaped the emergence of what Natalia Molina describes as an immigration regime, which defined the racial categories that continue to influence perceptions in the United States about Mexican Americans, race, and ethnicity. Molina demonstrates that despite the multiplicity of influences that help shape our concept of race, common themes prevail. Examining legal, political, social, and cultural sources related to immigration, she advances the theory that our understanding of race is socially constructed in relational ways--that is, in correspondence to other groups. Molina introduces and explains her central theory, racial scripts, which highlights the ways in which the lives of racialized groups are linked across time and space and thereby affect one another. How Race Is Made in America also shows that these racial scripts are easily adopted and adapted to apply to different racial groups"--Provided by publisher.



9780520957190 9781299981720


Mexican Americans--Social conditions--20th century.
Mexican Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century.
Immigrants--History--United States--20th century.
Citizenship--History--United States--20th century.
Race discrimination--History--United States--20th century.
Deportation--History--United States--20th century.


Electronic Books.

E184 / .H697 2014