Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California Volume 30

"With narrative fluency and deftness, constructed on a bedrock of prodigious archival research, HoSang's book provides a sorely needed genealogy of the 'color-blind consensus' that has come to define race and recode racism within US politics, law and public policy. This will be a book that lasts."and#151;Nikhil Pal Singh, author of Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy

"An important analysis of both the exact contours of white supremacy and the failures of electoral anti-racism."and#151;George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

"Racial Propositions brilliantly documents the history of race in California's post-World War II ballot initiatives to show that nothing is what it seems when it comes to race and politics in America's ethnoracial frontier. Daniel HoSang provides readers with a sharply focused interdisciplinary lens though which to see how the language and politics of political liberalism veil what are ultimately racialized ballot initiatives. If California is a harbinger for the rest of the country, then HoSang's tour de force is required reading for anyone interested how the United States will negotiate diversity in the 21st century."and#151;Tomand#225;s R. Jimand#233;nez, author of Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity

and#8220;An important read for understanding the future of race and politics in America.and#8221;

and#8220;Well-structured and crisply argued. . . . An important intellectual contribution.and#8221;

and#8220;[An] important book. . . . Effectively challenges narratives that depict white supremacy as static and doomed to eradication by progress.and#8221;

“Well-structured and crisply argued. . . . An important intellectual contribution.” David G. Gutierrez

“An important read for understanding the future of race and politics in America.” Western Historical Qtly

This book looks beyond the headlines to uncover the controversial history of California's ballot measures over the past fifty years. As the rest of the U.S. watched, California voters banned public services for undocumented immigrants, repealed public affirmative action programs, and outlawed bilingual education, among other measures. Why did a state with a liberal political culture, an increasingly diverse populace, and a well-organized civil rights leadership roll back civil rights and anti-discrimination gains? Daniel Martinez HoSang finds that, contrary to popular perception, this phenomenon does not represent a new wave of "color-blind" policies, nor is a triumph of racial conservatism. Instead, in a book that goes beyond the conservative-liberal divide, HoSang uncovers surprising connections between the right and left that reveal how racial inequality has endured. Arguing that each of these measures was a proposition about the meaning of race and racism, his deft, convincing analysis ultimately recasts our understanding of the production of racial identity, inequality, and power in the postwar era.

Daniel Martinez HoSang is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Ethnic Studies at the University of Oregon.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction: "Genteel Apartheid"

1. "We Have No Master Race": Racial Liberalism and Political Whiteness

2. "Racial and Religious Tolerance Are Highly Desirable Objectives": Fair Employment and the Vicissitudes of Tolerance, 1945and#150;1960

3. "Get Back Your Rights!" Fair Housing and the Right to Discriminate, 1960and#150;1972

4. "We Love All Kids": School Desegregation, Busing, and the Triumph of Racial Innocence, 1972and#150;1982

5. "How Can You Help Unite California?" English Only and the Politics of Exclusion, 1982and#150;1990

6. "They Keep Coming!" The Tangled Roots of Proposition 187

7. "Special Interests Hijacked the Civil Rights Movement": Affirmative Action and Bilingual Education on the Ballot, 1996and#150;2

8. "Dare We Forget the Lessons of History?" Ward Connerly's Racial Privacy Initiative, 2001and#150;2003

Conclusion: Blue State Racism

Acknowledgments

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index