Racial Propositions: Ballot Initiatives and the Making of Postwar California a new book by Daniel Martinez HoSang

Now available from University of California Press

Daniel HoSang, University of Oregon assistant professor, Ethnic Studies Department and the Department of Political Science, received faculty grant support for his research for this book in 2009 from the Center for the Study of Women in Society. HoSang is a CSWS faculty affiliate.

From the University of California Press:

“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 As the rest of the U.S. watched, California voters banned public services for undocumented immigrants, repealed public affirmative action programs, and outlawed bilingual education, among other measures.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.”