Race and Class in the Southwest and Other Essays

In Race and Class in the Southwest and Other Essays, Mario Barrera puts forth his seminal theory of racial inequality based on a synthesis of class and colonial analysis, together with several essays and selections from Barrera’s memoir that show how his thinking developed throughout his work. Reprinted here for the first time after becoming a modern classic of Chicano studies, Race and Class in the Southwest focuses on the economic foundations of inequality as they have affected Chicanos in the Southwest from the Mexican-American War to the present. Barrera reviews the economic history of Chicanos, their relegation to a subordinate position in the labor force segmented along racial lines, their displacement from the land, the effects of waves of immigration from Mexico, the role of an emerging Chicano middle class, and state policies designed to reproduce the subordinate status of Chicanos. He reviews competing theories of racial inequality and concludes that an “internal colonialism” model that focuses on the institutional subordination of Chicanos offers the greatest explanatory value for understanding the political economy of Chicanos in the Southwest. The editors, Rodolfo D. Torres and William I. Robinson, provide both an important historical and contextual introduction to the work, as well as thorough annotation that brings the scholarship into contemporary conversation with further theoretical development and highlights Barrera’s significant contribution to recent and new debates that reflect his legacy at a time of rising social inequalities, political conflict, and mass migration into the United States from Latin America.