Through the dedicated intervention of LULAC and other Mexican 
American activist groups, the understanding of civil rights in 
America was vastly expanded in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 
Mexican Americans gained federal remedies for discrimination 
based not simply on racial but also on cultural and linguistic 
disadvantages.

    Generally considered one of the more conservative ethnic political 
organizations, LULAC had traditionally espoused nonconfrontational 
tactics and had insisted on the identification of Mexican Americans 
as "white." But by 1966, the changing civil rights environment, new 
federal policies that protected minority groups, and rising militancy 
among Mexican American youth led LULAC to seek federal 
protections for Mexican Americans as a distinct minority. In that 
year, LULAC joined other Mexican American groups in staging a 
walkout during meetings with the Equal Employment Opportunity 
Commission in Albuquerque.

    In this book, Craig A. Kaplowitz draws on primary sources, at both 
national and local levels, to understand the federal policy arena in 
which the identity issues and power politics of LULAC were played out. 
At the national level, he focuses on presidential policies and politics, 
since civil rights has been preeminently a presidential issue. He also 
examines the internal tensions between LULAC members' ethnic 
allegiances and their identity as American citizens, which led to 
LULAC's attempt to be identified as white while, paradoxically, 
claiming policy benefits from the fact that Mexican Americans were 
treated as if they were non-white.

    This compelling study offers an important bridge between the 
history of social movements and the history of policy development. 
It also provides new insight into an important group on America's 
multicultural stage.

_________________________________________________________

CRAIG A. KAPLOWITZ is an assistant professor of history at Judson 
College in Elgin, Illinois.


Number Four: Fronteras Series, sponsored by Texas A&M 
International University


What people are saying about this book

"Still, this well-written book is a major contribution and disrupts the 
black/white binary. It is a must-read for all twentieth-century civil 
rights classes."—Journal of American Ethnic History, Winter/Spring 2006

" . . . the best job on LULAC that I have seen. . . He brings together 
scattered information that has not been synthesized before and 
provides new information and a new approach to looking at the 
organization which has not been available before. . . will add 
substantially to the work on the more traditional civil rights efforts of 
Mexican Americans. It should also help scholars and the lay person 
better understand where LULAC fits not only in Mexican American 
history but also in the history of civil rights in the United States."
—Ignacio M. Garcia, Brigham Young University

"The coverage is exemplary . . . The writing style is superb . . . 
[Kaplowitz] takes Mexican American history in cutting edge 
directions."—Arnoldo De León, Angelo State University