Racial Fault Lines

The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California

Author: Tomás Almaguer
ISBN: 9780520089471

This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and institutionalization of "white supremacy" in the state. Almaguer comparatively assesses the struggles for control of resources, status, and political legitimacy between the European American and the Native American, Mexican, African-American, Chinese, and Japanese populations. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, he weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time. The U.S. annexation of California in 1848 and the simultaneous discovery of gold sparked rapid and diverse waves of immigration westward, displacing the already established pastoral Mexican society. Almaguer shows how the confrontation between white immigrants and the Mexican ranchero and working class populations was also a contestation over racial status in which racialization influenced and was in turn influenced by class position

Publisher: University of California Press
Publish Date: 1994

Subjects: Social Science / Minority Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Raza Recource Centro (Location: Wall A, Shelf 1)