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"This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and the institutionalization of 'white supremacy' in the state. Drawing from an array of primary and secondary sources, Tomás Almaguer weaves a detailed, disturbing portrait of ethnic, racial, and class relationships during this tumultuous time. A new preface looks at the invaluable contribution the book has made to our understanding of ethnicity and class in America and of the social construction of 'race' in the Far West."--

Much has been written lately in both the popular and academic press about the "Browning" of America and the changing nature of race and ethnic relations in the United States. This has been largely the result of the precipitous increase in the Latino population and its profound change on the demographic landscape in the United States. For example, the U.S. Bureau of the Census (2010) has shown the Latino population grew from 35.3 million in 2000 to over 50 million in 2010 (p. 3). The Latino population now represents 16% of the total U.S. population and has surpassed African Americans as the largest racial-ethnic population at the turn of the century. Recent demographic projections calculate that by 2050 the Latino population will increase to an estimated 128 million or 29% of the national total. As Rumbaut (2009) writes, in that year it will exceed the combined total of all other racial minorities (primarily African American and Asian) in the United States (p. 17).

The focus of this working paper is to suggest the outlines of an alternative theoretical approach to Chicano history. In doing so I summarize Immanuel Wallerstein's 'world-system perspective" and propose ways in which this approach might be useful in interpreting our past history. The arguments presented in the application of the "world-system" approach to Chicano history are still speculative in nature. Much of the historical sketch that I present here is yet to be fully developed. Needless to say, the primary purpose of this working paper is not to present a completely detailed study but merely to suggest one new approach to the question of theory in Chicano historical interpretation. In approaching the issue of interpretation in Chicano history, I focus my discussion on 19th century California. This historical period is particularly important since the entire southwest was to undergo during this century the political and economic dominance of three different countries: Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Analyzing the distinctive features of economic life in these political "periods" raises a number of vexing questions for one doing Marxist historiography in this century. By focusing on this century-long history of California I show that one of the most crucial problems that arises in defining the type of society that existed during the "Spanish", "Mexican", and "American" periods is whether the social and economic organization of California was basically "feudal" or "capitalist." In examining this issue in the last part of this paper, I tie my interpretive discussion of the 19th century California into the broader Marxist debate on the "transition from feudalism to capitalism." Note: This working paper was originally published in 1977 by the Institute for the Study of Social Change, which became the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues.

"The New Latino Studies Reader is designed as a contemporary, updated, multi-faceted collection of writings that bring to force the exciting, necessary scholarship of the last decades. Its aim is to introduce a new generation of students to a wide-ranging set of writing that helps them have a truer understanding of what it's like to be a Latino in the United States. With the reader, students explore the socio-historical formation of Latinos as a distinct pan-ethnic group in the United States, delving into issues of class formation; social stratification; racial, gender and sexual identities; and politics and cultural production. And while other readers now in print may discuss Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Central Americans as distinct groups with unique experiences, this text explores the commonalities that structure the experiences of Latinos Americans as a whole. Timely, thorough, and thought-provoking, The New Latino Studies Reader provides a genuine view of the Latino experience as a whole"--Provided by publisher

Hombres chicanos: una cartografía de la identidad y del comportamiento homosexual

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Re-membering Gay Latino Studies -- Queer Theory Revisited -- Comment. It's All in Having a History -- Gay Shame, Latina-and Latino-Style: A Critique of White Queer Performativity -- Comment Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes's "Gay Shame, Latina-and Latino-Style: A Critique of White Queer Performativity" -- The Place of Gay Male Chicano Literature in Queer Chicana/o Cultural Work -- Comment. Our Queer Kin -- Carnal Knowledge: Chicano Gay Men and the Dialectics of Being -- Comment. Entre Machos y Maricones: (Re)Covering Chicano Gay Male (Hi)Stories -- Entre Hombres/Between Men: Latino Masculinities and Homosexualities -- Comment. The Material and Cultural Worlds of Latino Gay Men -- Gay Latino Cultural Citizenship: Predicaments of Identity and Visibility in San Francisco in the 1990s -- Comment A Response to "Gay Latino Cultural Citizenship" -- Feeling Brown: Ethnicity and Affect in Ricardo Bracho's The Sweetest Hangover (and Other STDs) -- Comment. Never Too Much: Queer Performance between Impossibility and Excess -- Shifting the Site of Queer Enunciation: Manuel Muñoz and the Politics of Form -- Comment. Dancing with the Devil—When the Devil Is Gay -- Choreographies of Resistance: Latino Queer Dance and the Utopian Performative -- Comment Response to "Choreographies of Resistance: Latino Queer Dance and the Utopian Performative" -- Dance Liberation -- Comment. Dance with Me -- Bibliography -- Contributors -- Index

From the California Indians who labored in the Spanish missions to the immigrant workers on Silicon Valley's high-tech assembly lines, California's work force has had a complex and turbulent past, marked by some of the sharpest and most significant battles fought by America's working people. This anthology presents the work of scholars who are forging a new brand of social history--one that reflects the diversity of California's labor force by paying close attention to the multicultural and gendered aspects of the past. Readers will discover a refreshing chronological breadth to this volume, as well as a balanced examination of both rural and urban communities. Daniel Cornford's excellent general introduction provides essential historical background while his brief introductions to each chapter situate the essays in their larger contexts. A list of further readings appears at the end of each chapter. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1995

Michael Omi and Howard Winant's Racial Formation in the United States remains one of the most influential books and widely read books about race. Racial Formation in the 21st Century, arriving twenty-five years after the publication of Omi and Winant's influential work, brings together fourteen essays by leading scholars in law, history, sociology, ethnic studies, literature, anthropology and gender studies to consider the past, present and future of racial formation. The contributors explore far-reaching concerns: slavery and land ownership; labor and social movements; torture and war; sexuality and gender formation; indigineity and colonialism; genetics and the body. From the ecclesiastical courts of seventeenth century Lima to the cell blocks of Abu Grahib, the essays draw from Omi and Winant's influential theory of racial formation and adapt it to the various criticisms, challenges, and changes of life in the twenty-first century