Latino Politics

By: Lisa Garcia Bedolla (University of California, Berkeley)

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• Table of Contents
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Description

Focusing on five Latino groups – Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans – this book provides students with a comprehensive introduction to Latino participation in US politics. It begins by looking at the migration history of each group and how that experience is affected by US foreign policy and economic interests in each country of origin. The political status of Latinos on arrival in the United States, including their civil rights, employment opportunities, and political incorporation, is then examined. Finally, the analysis follows each group’s history of collective mobilization and political activity, exploring the varied ways they have engaged in the U.S. political system.

Using the tension between individual agency and structural constraints as its central organizing theme, the discussion situates Latino migrants, and their children, within larger macro economic and geo-political structures that influence their decisions to migrate and their ability to adapt socially, economically, and politically to their new country. It also demonstrates how Latinos continually have shown that through political action they can significantly improve their channels of opportunity. Thus, the book pushes students to think critically about what it means to be a racialized minority group within a majoritarian U.S. political system, and how that position structures Latinos’ ability to achieve their social, economic, and political goals.

For more information and resources visit the accompanying series website: www.politybooks.com/minoritypol

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* Exam copies only available to lecturers for whom the book may be suitable as a course text.
Please note: Sales representation and distribution for Polity titles is provided by John Wiley and Sons Ltd.

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Reviews

"Bedolla has given us the determinant must-have resource for any student of Latino politics. Insightful, theoretically sophisticated, well-researched, but also highly accessible, this book provides the most careful and complete analysis of Latinos political diversity, and of their growing significance in American politics."
Arlene Dávila, New York University

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Introduction: Latinos and U.S. Politics

Chapter 2. Latina/o Participation: Individual Activity and Institutional Context

Chapter 3. Mexican Americans: Conquest, Migration, and Adaptation

Chapter 4. Puerto Ricans: from Colonized People to Political Activists

Chapter 5. Cuban Americans: Occupation, Revolution, and Exile Politics

Chapter 6. Central Americans: Inequality, War, and Solidarity

Chapter 7. Conclusion: The Context of Latino Migration and Mobilization

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Author Information

Lisa Garcia Bedolla is associate professor of social and cultural studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

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