Latinos and American Politics – serie

This book uses a micro-narrative structure to explore the assault on the collective memory of Mexican Americans in the Southwest United States from 2010–2016. These communities’ survival depends on their histories and identities, which are being quickly erased by gentrification and dispersal, neoliberalism and privatization. This issue is most apparent in the education system, where Mexican American students receive inferior educations and lack access to higher education. Avoiding the overly-theoretical macro-narrative, this book uses case studies and micro-narratives to suggest possible changes and actions to address this issue. It also explores how the erasure of Mexican Americans’ history and identity mirrors society as a whole.

Racism, Latinos, and the Public Policy Process traces the process by which race and racism are infused into the public policy process. This book provides a definition and short history of racism with a discussion of how individuals learn and absorb racial ideas and how these ideas become essential elements of the public policy process. Discussion of the three policy areas, gun control, immigration and voting rights, provide new insights into the relationship between decisional and individual belief structures and the decisional process.