Synopses & Reviews
Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Fit to Be Citizens? demonstrates how both science and public health shaped the meaning of race in the early twentieth century. Through a careful examination of the experiences of Mexican, Japanese, and Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles, Natalia Molina illustrates the many ways local health officials used complexly constructed concerns about public health to demean, diminish, discipline, and ultimately define racial groups. She shows how the racialization of Mexican Americans was not simply a matter of legal exclusion or labor exploitation, but rather that scientific discourses and public health practices played a key role in assigning negative racial characteristics to the group. The book skillfully moves beyond the binary oppositions that usually structure works in ethnic studies by deploying comparative and relational approaches that reveal the racialization of Mexican Americans as intimately associated with the relative historical and social positions of Asian Americans, African Americans, and whites. Its rich archival grounding provides a valuable history of public health in Los Angeles, living conditions among Mexican immigrants, and the ways in which regional racial categories influence national laws and practices. Molinaand#8217;s compelling study advances our understanding of the complexity of racial politics, attesting that racism is not static and that different groups can occupy different places in the racial order at different times.
Synopsis
A widely anticipated first book and an exemplary model of comparative history that shows how racial dynamics were constructed by health officials during Los Angeles's most formative years, how these unique regional dynamics impacted national policies, and how Japanese, Chinese and above all Mexican immigrants responded.
Synopsis
"
Fit to Be Citizens is tightly organized, crisply and clearly argued, and beautifully written throughout. Molina paints a vivid portrait of an understudied dimension of southern California social history."and#151;David G. Gutiand#233;rrez, author of
Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity"This riveting study crosses boundaries of both discipline and nationality to marvelous effect."and#151;David Roediger, author of Working Toward Whiteness
Synopsis
"
Fit to Be Citizens is tightly organized, crisply and clearly argued, and beautifully written throughout. Molina paints a vivid portrait of an understudied dimension of southern California social history."--David G. Gutiérrez, author of
Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity"This riveting study crosses boundaries of both discipline and nationality to marvelous effect."--David Roediger, author of Working Toward Whiteness
About the Author
Natalia Molina is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies and Urban Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Interlopers in the Land of Sunshine: Chinese Disease Carriers, Launderers, and Vegetable Peddlers
2. Caught between Discourses of Disease, Health, and Nation: Public Health Attitudes toward Japanese and Mexican Laborers in Progressive-Era Los Angeles
3. Institutionalizing Public Health in Ethnic Los Angeles in the 1920s
4. and#147;We Can No Longer Ignore the Problem of the Mexicanand#8221;: Depression-Era Public Health Policies in Los Angeles
5. The Fight for and#147;Health, Morality, and Decent Living Standardsand#8221;: Mexican Americans and the Struggle for Public Housing in 1930s Los Angeles
Epilogue: Genealogies of Racial Discourses and Practices
Notes
Bibliography
Index