Between 1940 and 1975, Mexican Americans and African Americans in Texas fought a number of battles in court, at the ballot box, in schools, and on the streets to eliminate segregation and state-imposed racism. Although both groups engaged in civil rights struggles as victims of similar forms of racism and discrimination, they were rarely unified. In Fighting Their Own Battles, Brian Behnken explores the cultural dissimilarities, geographical distance, class tensions, and organizational differences that all worked to separate Mexican Americans and blacks. Behnken further demonstrates that prejudices on both sides undermined the potential for a united civil rights campaign. Coalition building and cooperative civil rights efforts foundered on the rocks of perceived difference, competition, distrust, and, oftentimes, outright racism. Behnken's in-depth study reveals the major issues of contention for the two groups, their different strategies to win rights, and significant thematic developments within the two civil rights struggles. By comparing the histories of these movements in one of the few states in the nation to witness two civil rights movements, Behnken bridges the fields of Mexican American and African American history, revealing the myriad causes that ultimately led these groups to "fight their own battles.

Brian Behnken offers a sweeping examination of the interactions between Mexican-origin people and law enforcement-both legally codified police agencies and extralegal justice-across the U.S. Southwest (especially Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas) from the 1830s to the 1930s. Representing a broad, colonial regime, police agencies and extralegal groups policed and controlled Mexican-origin people to maintain state and racial power in the region, treating Mexicans and Mexican Americans as a "foreign" population that they deemed suspect and undesirable. White Americans justified these perceptions and the acts of violence that they spawned with racist assumptions about the criminality of Mexican-origin people, but Behnken details the many ways Mexicans and Mexican Americans responded to violence, including the formation of self-defense groups and advocacy organizations. Others became police officers, vowing to protect Mexican-origin people from within the ranks of law enforcement. Mexican Americans also pushed state and territorial governments to professionalize law enforcement to halt abuse. The long history of the border region between the United States and Mexico has been one marked by periodic violence, but Behnken shows us in unsparing detail how Mexicans and Mexican Americans refused to stand idly by in the face of relentless assault.

Brian Behnken offers a sweeping examination of the interactions between Mexican-origin people and law enforcement-both legally codified police agencies and extralegal justice-across the U.S. Southwest (especially Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas) from the 1830s to the 1930s. Representing a broad, colonial regime, police agencies and extralegal groups policed and controlled Mexican-origin people to maintain state and racial power in the region, treating Mexicans and Mexican Americans as a "foreign" population that they deemed suspect and undesirable. White Americans justified these perceptions and the acts of violence that they spawned with racist assumptions about the criminality of Mexican-origin people, but Behnken details the many ways Mexicans and Mexican Americans responded to violence, including the formation of self-defense groups and advocacy organizations. Others became police officers, vowing to protect Mexican-origin people from within the ranks of law enforcement. Mexican Americans also pushed state and territorial governments to professionalize law enforcement to halt abuse. The long history of the border region between the United States and Mexico has been one marked by periodic violence, but Behnken shows us in unsparing detail how Mexicans and Mexican Americans refused to stand idly by in the face of relentless assault.

It might seem that African Americans and Mexican Americans would have common cause in matters of civil rights. This volume, which considers relations between blacks and browns during the civil rights era, carefully examines the complex and multifaceted realities that complicate such assumptions--and that revise our view of both the civil rights struggle and black-brown relations in recent history. Unique in its focus, innovative in its methods, and broad in its approach to various locales and time periods, the book provides key perspectives to understanding the development of America's ethnic and sociopolitical landscape.
These essays focus chiefly on the Southwest, where Mexican Americans and African Americans have had a long history of civil rights activism. Among the cases the authors take up are the unification of black and Chicano civil rights and labor groups in California; divisions between Mexican Americans and African Americans generated by the War on Poverty; and cultural connections established by black and Chicano musicians during the period. Together these cases present the first truly nuanced picture of the conflict and cooperation, goodwill and animosity, unity and disunity that played a critical role in the history of both black and brown relations and the battle for civil rights. Their insights are especially timely, as black-brown relations occupy an increasingly important role in the nation's public life.

Contributions by Tunde Adeleke, Brian D. Behnken, Minkah Makalani, Benita Roth, Gregory D. Smithers, Simon Wendt, and Danielle L. Wiggins. Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black intellectuals have found their work misused, ignored, or discarded. Black intellectuals have also been reductively placed into one or two main categories: they are usually deemed liberal or, less frequently, as conservative. The Contributors to this volume explore several prominent intellectuals, from such left-leaning leaders as W. E. B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell and from such well-known black feminists as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States. Contributors also situate the development of the lines of black intellectual thought within the broader history from which these trends emerged. The result gathers essays that offer entry into a host of rich intellectual traditions.

Civil Rights and Beyond examines the dynamic relationships between African American and Latino/a activists in the United States from the 1930s to the present day. Building on recent scholarship that explores black-Latino/a relations in the United States, this book pushes the timeframe for the study of interactions between blacks and a variety of Latino/a groups beyond the standard chronology of the civil rights era. As such, the book merges a host of community histories-each with their own distinct historical experiences and activisms-to explore group dynamics, differing strategies and activist moments, and the broader quests of these communities for rights and social justice. This book is framed around the concept of "activism," which most fully encompasses the relationships that blacks and Latinos have enjoyed throughout the twentieth century. Wide ranging and pioneering, Civil Rights and Beyond explores black and Latino/a activism from California to Florida, Chicago to Bakersfield-and a host of other communities and cities-to demonstrate the complicated nature of African American-Latino/a activism in the twentieth-century United States.

Contributions by Tunde Adeleke, Brian D. Behnken, Minkah Makalani, Benita Roth, Gregory D. Smithers, Simon Wendt, and Danielle L. Wiggins Black intellectualism has been misunderstood by the American public and by scholars for generations. Historically maligned by their peers and by the lay public as inauthentic or illegitimate, black intellectuals have found their work misused, ignored, or discarded. Black intellectuals have also been reductively placed into one or two main categories: they are usually deemed liberal or, less frequently, as conservative. The contributors to this volume explore several prominent intellectuals, from left-leaning leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois to conservative intellectuals like Thomas Sowell, from well-known black feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins to Marxists like Claudia Jones, to underscore the variety of black intellectual thought in the United States. Contributors also situate the development of the lines of black intellectual thought within the broader history from which these trends emerged. The result gathers essays that offer entry into a host of rich intellectual traditions.

Crossing Boundaries: Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World explores ethnic and racial nationalism within a transnational and transcultural framework in the long twentieth century (late nineteenth to early twenty-first century). The contributors to this volume examine how national solidarity and identity-with their vast array of ideological, political, intellectual, social, and ethno-racial qualities-crossed juridical, territorial, and cultural boundaries to become transnational; how they altered the ethnic and racial visions of nation-states throughout the twentieth century; and how they ultimately influenced conceptions of national belonging across the globe. Human beings live in an increasingly interconnected, transnational, global world. National economies are linked worldwide, information can be transmitted around the world in seconds, and borders are more transparent and fluid. In this process of transnational expansion, the very definition of what constitutes a nation and nationalism in many parts of the world has been expanded to include individuals from different countries, and, more importantly, members of ethno-racial communities. But crossing boundaries is not a new phenomenon. In fact, transnationalism has a long and sordid history that has not been fully appreciated. Scholars and laypeople interested in national development, ethnic nationalism, as well as world history will find Crossing Boundaries indispensable.

This book examines how the media-including advertising, motion pictures, cartoons, and popular fiction-has used racist images and stereotypes as marketing tools that malign and debase African Americans, Latinos, American Indians, and Asian Americans in the United States. Were there damaging racist depictions in Gone with the Wind and children's cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Mickey Mouse? How did widely known stereotypes of the Latin lover, the lazy Latino, the noble savage and the violent warrior American Indian, and the Asian as either a martial artist or immoral and tricky come about? This book utilizes an ethnic and racial comparative approach to examine the racism evidenced in multiple forms of popular media, enabling readers to apply their critical thinking skills to compare and analyze stereotypes, grasp the often-subtle sources of racism in the everyday world around us, and understand how racism in the media was used to unite white Americans and exclude ethnic people from the body politic of the United States. Authors Brian D. Behnken and Gregory D. Smithers examine the popular media from the late 19th century through the 20th century to the early 21st century. This broad coverage enables readers to see how depictions of people of color, such as Aunt Jemima, have been consistently stereotyped back to the 1880s and to grasp how those depictions have changed over time. The book's chapters explore racism in the popular fiction, advertising, motion pictures, and cartoons of the United States, and examine the multiple groups affected by this racism, including African Americans, Latino/as, Asian Americans, and American Indians. Attention is also paid to the efforts of minorities-particularly civil rights activists-in challenging and combating racism in the popular media. Addresses the current and important subject of how the powerful and pervasive messages in the media communicate and reinforce common racial stereotypes about people of color to vast audiences-especially children Examines popular depictions of people of color going back to the 1880s and details how those depictions have changed Explores "fun" subject matter that student readers find interesting-pop culture and how it shapes our daily experiences-with an analytical, critical edge

Crossing Boundaries: Ethnicity, Race, and National Belonging in a Transnational World, edited by Brian D. Behnken and Simon Wendt, explores ethnic and racial nationalism within a transnational and transcultural framework in the long twentieth-century (late nineteenth to early twenty-first century). The contributors to this volume examine how national solidarity and identity- with its vast array of ideological, political, intellectual, social, and ethno-racial qualities-crossed juridical, territorial, and cultural boundaries to become transnational; how it altered the ethnic and racial visions of nation-states throughout the twentieth century; and how it ultimately influenced conceptions of national belonging across the globe. Human beings live in an increasingly interconnected, transnational, global world. National economies are linked worldwide, information can be transmitted around the world in seconds, and borders are more transparent and fluid.In this process of transnational expansion, the very definition of what constitutes a nation and nationalism in many parts of the world has been expanded to include individuals from different countries and, more importantly, members of ethno-racial communities. But crossing boundaries is not a new phenomenon. In fact, transnationalism has a long and sordid history that has not been fully appreciated. Scholars and laypeople interested in national development, ethnic nationalism as well as world history will find Crossing Boundaries indispensable.