Mestizo Democracy

It can come as no surprise that the ethnic makeup of the American population is rapidly changing. In this volume, John Francis Burke offers a mestizo theory of democracy and traces its implications for public policy. Mestizo, meaning ""mixture,"" is a term from the Mexican socio-political experience that represents a blend of indigenous, African, and Spanish genes and cultures in Latin America in which the influences of these cultures remain identifiable but interact with each other in dynamic ways. Burke analyzes democratic theory and multiculturalism to develop a model for effectively dealing with cultural diversity. He applies this model to official language(s), voting, employment, housing, and free trade, concluding that in the United States we are becoming mestizo whether we like it or not.