Kaplowitz, Craig A. LULAC: Mexican Americans and National Policy.

• Author: Carletta, David M.
• Position: Book Review

Kaplowitz, Craig A. LULAC: Mexican Americans and National Policy. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2005. x + 254 pp. Cloth, $35.00.

After the United States annexed a third of Mexico's territory following the Mexican War (1846-48), tens of thousands of Mexicans became U.S. citizens. The new citizens were beset by discrimination and segregation from those they labeled Anglos, or non-Hispanic whites. Mexican Americans created benevolent associations for community self-help and to defend themselves against Anglo prejudice. Recognizing the advantages of a united front, leaders of several Mexican-American organizations joined together to create the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in 1929. The founders of LULAC, prosperous men from the business and professional classes, worked to aid Mexican Americans in self-reliance and to obtain equal opportunities, particularly in education and employment, in order to bring Mexican Americans into the U.S. political and economic mainstream. LULAC leaders emphasized their American over Mexican identity and sought to create a patriotic, educated, voting, English-speaking Mexican-American citizenry.

In LULAC: Mexican Americans and National Policy, Craig A. Kaplowitz effectively combines an assessment of the league's efforts to obtain civil-rights protections for Mexican Americans with U.S. policymakers' responses to the entry of LULAC, and Mexican Americans generally, into the federal policy arena. The league's national office developed into a strong interest group presenting the views of the Mexican-American middle class, a small but significant elite that made up the leadership of the organization, which was most successful at the national level when it concentrated on influencing the White House. Focusing on LULAC and the policymaking of U.S. presidents and their advisors, Kaplowitz explains the dynamics of the public-policy system in regards to Mexican Americans. His study emphasizes presidential policymakers, arguing that the civil rights era was one of presidential initiative in response to demands for social change from minorities and their supporters.

Kaplowitz begins by briefly surveying the history of Mexican Americans and the origins and early development of LULAC, which became part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition in the 1930s. LULAC's successful case for equal access to public facilities and schools was based on the argument that Mexican...