Full Description
Strategies of Segregation unearths the ideological and structural architecture of enduring racial inequality within and beyond schools in Oxnard, California. In this meticulously researched narrative spanning 1903 to 1974, David G. García excavates an extensive array of archival sources to expose a separate and unequal school system and its purposeful links with racially restrictive housing covenants. He recovers powerful oral accounts of Mexican Americans and African Americans who endured disparate treatment and protested discrimination. His analysis is skillfully woven into a compelling narrative that culminates in an examination of one of the nation's first desegregation cases filed jointly by Mexican American and Black plaintiffs. This transdisciplinary history advances our understanding of racism and community resistance across time and place.
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 • The White Architects of Mexican American Education 12
2 • Pernicious Deeds: Restrictive Covenants and Schools 39
3 • "Obsessed" with Segregating Mexican Students 55
4 • Ramona School and the Undereducation of Children in La Colonia 79
5 • A Common Cause Emerges for Mexican American and Black Organizers 100
6 • Challenging "a Systematic Scheme of Racial Segregation": Soria v. Oxnard School Board of Trustees 129
Epilogue 162
Appendix: List of Interviews Conducted and Consulted 167
Notes 169
Bibliography 247
