The Mexican American experience in Texas : citizenship, segregation, and the struggle for equality / Martha Menchaca

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The pobladores and the casta system -- New racial structures: citizenship and land conflicts -- Violence and segregation, 1877 to 1927 -- Challenging segregation, 1927 to 1948 -- The path to desegregation, 1948 to1962 -- Institutional desegregation, social movement pressures, and the Chicano Movement -- Mexican American social mobility and immigration.

Martha Menchaca begins with the Spanish settlement of Texas, exploring how Mexican Americans' racial heritage limited their incorporation into society after the territory's annexation. She then illustrates their political struggles in the nineteenth century as they tried to assert their legal rights of citizenship and retain possession of their land, and goes on to explore their fight, in the twentieth century, against educational segregation, jury exclusion, and housing covenants. It was only in 1967, she shows, that the collective pressure placed on the state government by Mexican American and African American activists led to the beginning of desegregation. Menchaca concludes with a look at the crucial role that Mexican Americans have played in national politics, education, philanthropy, and culture, while acknowledging the important work remaining to be done in the struggle for equality.