siddy's Full Review: Tomas Almaguer - Racial Fault Lines: The Historica...
Being born after the civil rights movement from immigrant parents and living in California, I nearly choked when I saw the title of the book, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California by Tomas Almaguer. This is perhaps not a typical first reaction upon seeing even the title of the book, maybe some people would take it mildly. I immediately disliked it. No matter how the old adage goes, sometimes, there's just no use trying to get someone to read this type of a book beyond the title. What type am I talking about?
It's straightforward as the title says. The book "initially began as a doctoral dissertation in the Department of Sociology at U.C. Berkeley." Yes, this is that kind of book-dry non-fiction replete with endless headnotes and footnotes, facts and figures thrown in for variety, spewing venom and critical of every time-honored tradition and institutions that made California the 9th largest economic powerhouse in the world today. California, the author would have us believe, is a state founded by opportunistic, pro-slavery politicians hoping to take advantage from racial discrimination and the dogma of white supremacy. What would Walt Disney say to that? What would Hollywood say to that? I was never targeted by mysterious white-robed men or even teased at the schoolyard for my skin, eye and hair color. I've never been a victim of white supremacy, have I? Do I really care at this stage in my well-established life? Do I really want my happy, happy worldview to be toppled by this author's dissertation, of all things?
It turns out, Tomas Almaguer took me to school.
The book introduces main ideas discussed in the later sections of the book: that the idea of race is a man-made construct that has enabled "whites" to assign different classes of "non-whites," that the racialized treatment of non-whites varied according to their origin, skin color, and economic status. According to Almaguer, systematic white supremacy allowed those of European ancestry-particulary of Anglo-Saxon origins- to render the rest of the non-whites inferior. This "racialization" provided the whites the the moral and religious authority to either eradicate or supplicate the non-white population in California. This first section is extremely academic (read: tough) to read for the casual reader. If your regular readings do not include subjects in non-fiction sociology or history, then you would probably figure out a better way to use the book-maybe as kindling for your fireplace.
Then, the book goes on to prove the author's claims. The masochistic boredom factor drops off dramatically beginning from chapter one, entitled, "We Desire Only a White Population in California." I don't know how much proof/evidence you usually require to buy an argument. But the sheer amount of research and supporting documentary evidence in the book was enough to convince me that the native Americans were slaughtered mercilessly, deemed "savages" beyond any salvation or humane consideration, and the existing Mexican Americans, and the rest of the waves of immigrants who came after them were also stripped and deprived of their rightful place in California history and the piece of the Golden bounty-the gold and the rich, fertile land- for which California is famous.
From the middle to the end of the 64-page long notes at the end, I was alternating between helpless despair and erupting anger. I have never before experienced this incredible phenomenon while reading a dry, old, academic book written by someone whom I never heard of before. The aftermath of the book caused me to look at American society and how the historical, and yet unmentioned practice of white supremacy affects the modern workings of Californian politics and economy.
My happy, happy, heidi house was thus demolished beyond recognition by Tomas Almaguer. Is it better to live in blissful ignorance or is it better to know more aspects of the truth that shapes our world paradigm? This would decide whether you would read this book or not. As for myself, what was really irritating at first was the author's highly involved tone of barely repressed outrage. Then I realized that history is a subject on which you MUST take a position. From a sociological standpoint, you must feel something intensely if you want to affect a change. I could not blame the author for bringing me to these insights.
This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and the institutionalization of "white s...More at HotBookSale
This book unravels the ethnic history of California since the late nineteenth-century Anglo-American conquest and the institutionalization of "white s...More at HotBookSale
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