Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: Latino and Asian Racial Formations at the Frontiers of U.S. Nationalism / Nicholas De Genova 1
Part One: Racial Science, Social Control
1. Colonial Vision, Racial Visibility: Racializations in Puerto Rico and the Philippines during the Initial Period of U.S. Colonization / Gary Y. Okihiro 23
2. Inverting Racial Logic: How Public Health Discourse and Standards Racialized the Meanings of Japanese and Mexican in Los Angeles, 1910–1924 / Natalia Molina 40
3. Getting the Measure of Tomorrow: Chinese and Chicano Americans under the Racial Gaze, 1934–1935 and 1942–1944 / Victor Jew 62
Part Two: Contradictions of Coalition
4. The Limits of Interracial Coalitions: Méndez v. Westminster Reexamined / Toni Robinson and Greg Robinson 93
5. The Political Significance of Race: Asian American and Latino Redistricting Debates in California and New York / Leland T. Saito 120
Part Three: Perils of Inclusion
6. Joining the State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Junot Díaz and Chang-rae Lee / Andrea Levine 147
7. The Passion: The Betrayals of Elián González and Wen Ho Lee / Crystal Parikh 170
Bibliography 209
Contributors 221
Index 223

Promotional Information

Essays examining how the experiences of Latinos and Asians have intersected in the construction of the U.S. nation-state

About the Author

Nicholas De Genova is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Latino Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and “Illegality” in Mexican Chicago, also published by Duke University Press, and a coauthor of Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the Politics of Race and Citizenship.

Reviews

"Racial Transformations challenges standard notions of racial meaning, racial identity, and racial politics. We need work like this: its comparative approach to Latino and Asian American racial formation helps us rethink many of the existing paradigms of race. A valuable contribution." Howard Winant, author of The New Politics of Race: Globalism, Difference, Justice " This collection marks an important intervention in the history and historiography of 'race,' ethnicity, immigration, and citizenship in the United States." David Gutierrez, author of Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity