CRSC Books

Quixote's Soldiers A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966–1981

David Montejano
2010

David Montejano - In the mid-1960s, San Antonio, Texas, was a segregated city governed by an entrenched Anglo social and business elite. The Mexican American barrios of the west and south sides were characterized by substandard housing and experienced seasonal flooding. Gang warfare broke out regularly. Then the striking farmworkers of South Texas marched through the city and set off a social movement that transformed the barrios and ultimately brought down the old Anglo oligarchy. In Quixote's Soldiers, David Montejano uses a wealth of previously untapped...

Global Mixed Race

Stephen Small
Miri Song
Paul Spickard
Rebecca C. King-O’Rian
Minelle Mahtan
2014

By Stephen Small - Patterns of migration and the forces of globalization have brought the issues of mixed race to the public in far more visible, far more dramatic ways than ever before. Global Mixed Race examines the contemporary experiences of people of mixed descent in nations around the world, moving beyond US borders to explore the dynamics of racial mixing and multiple descent in Zambia, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Okinawa, Australia, and New Zealand. In particular, the volume’s editors ask: how have new...

Rallying for Immigrant Rights: The Fight for Inclusion in 21st Century America

Irene Bloemraad
Kim Voss
2011

Irene Bloemraad - From Alaska to Florida, millions of immigrants and their supporters took to the streets across the United States to rally for immigrant rights in the spring of 2006. The scope and size of their protests, rallies, and boycotts made these the most significant events of political activism in the United States since the 1960s. This accessibly written volume offers the first comprehensive analysis of this historic moment. Perfect for students and general readers, its essays, written by a multidisciplinary group of scholars and grassroots organizers,...

The City That Became Safe

Franklin Zimring
2011

Franklin Zimring - In The City That Became Safe, Franklin E. Zimring seeks out the New York difference through a comprehensive investigation into the city's falling crime rates. The usual understanding is that aggressive police created a zero-tolerance law enforcement regime that drove crime rates down. Is this political sound bite true-are the official statistics generated by the police accurate? Though zero-tolerance policing and quality-of-life were never a consistent part of the NYPD's strategy, Zimring shows the numbers are correct and...

New Perspectives on Slavery and Colonialism in the Caribbean

Stephen Small
2012

Stephen Small - This reader consists of 11 articles that focus on slavery and the legacy of slavery in Suriname and the Caribbean. Analysis of slavery in the Caribbean, including variations in the nature, functioning and legacies of slavery across territories with different imperial masters – including the English, Spanish and French – has a long history and has produced a very substantial literature. There is far less work on the Dutch Caribbean, including Suriname. This reader makes a contribution to increasing our attention on the Dutch Caribbean, as well as its...

Opening Minds, Improving Lives: Education and Women’s Empowerment in Honduras

Erin Murphy-Graham
2012

Erin Murphy-Graham - Juanita was seventeen years old and pregnant with her first child when she began an activity that would "open" her mind. Living in a remote Garifuna village in Honduras, Juanita had dropped out of school after the sixth grade. In 1996, a new educational program, Sistema de Aprendizaje Tutorial (Tutorial Learning System or SAT), was started in her community. The program helped her see the world differently and open a small business.


Empowering women through education has become a top priority of...

Sancho's Journal: Exploring the Political Edge with the Brown Berets

David Montejano
2012

David Montejano - Completing the story of the Mexican American struggle for inclusion and equal rights that he began in Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 and Quixote’s Soldiers, Montejano presents a rich ethnography of the street-level Chicano movement.

Why Are So Many Americans in Prison?

Steven Raphael
2013

Steven Raphael - Raphael and Stoll carefully evaluate changes in crime patterns, enforcement practices and sentencing laws to reach a sobering conclusion: So many Americans are in prison today because we have chosen, through our public policies, to put them there. They dispel the notion that a rise in crime rates fueled the incarceration surge; in fact, crime rates have steadily declined to all-time lows. There is also little evidence for other factors commonly offered to explain the prison boom, such as the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill since the 1950s...

The New Scarlet Letter?: Negotiating the U.S. Labor Market with a Criminal Record

Steven Raphael
2014

Steven Raphael - The numbers are eye-opening. In 2007, on any given day, 2.2 percent of all males in the United States were incarcerated, including 7.9 percent of all black males. Some 2.6 percent of white males , 7.7 percent of Hispanic males, and 16.6 percent of black males have spent time in state or federal prison at some point in their lives. And for a male child born in 2001, the likelihood of going to prison is 5.9 percent for whites, 17.2 percent for Hispanics, and a whopping 32.2 percent for blacks. Of those who spend time in prison, the overwhelming...

Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American

G. Cristina Mora
2014

G. Cristina Mora - How did Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and Cubans become known as “Hispanics” and “Latinos” in the United States? How did several distinct cultures and nationalities become portrayed as one? Cristina Mora answers both these questions and details the scope of this phenomenon in Making Hispanics. She uses an organizational lens and traces how activists, bureaucrats, and media executives in the 1970s and ’80s created a new identity category—and by doing so, permanently changed the racial and political landscape of the nation.

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