Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California

Rating:
Summary: almost faultless
Review: Almaguer has given us a useful history of racial attitudes and white supremacy in nineteenth century Cali. Avoiding a "binary"-- or black/white-- understanding of racial relations, Racial Fault Lines traces the unique racial sagas of Mexicans, Chinese, and Indian peoples in their encounters with "white" Californians. Almaguer could do more to investigate interactions among such groups ACROSS the categories of "racial otherness": Mexican, Chinese, and Indian. SOme readers will also question his chronology and wonder to what extent the 'origins of white supremacy' in California might have begun much earlier than the mid-nineteenth century, where his book focuses.