The Science and Politics of Race in Mexico and the United States, 1910–1950

In this history of the social and human sciences in Mexico and the United States, Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt reveals intricate connections among the development of science, the concept of race, and policies toward indigenous peoples. Focusing on the anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians, and other experts who collaborated across borders from the Mexican Revolution through World War II, Rosemblatt traces how intellectuals on both sides of the Rio Grande forged shared networks in which they discussed indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities. In doing so, Rosemblatt argues, they refashioned race as a scientific category and consolidated their influence within their respective national policy circles. Postrevolutionary Mexican experts aimed to transform their country into a modern secular state with a dynamic economy, and central to this endeavor was learning how to "manage" racial difference and social welfare. The same concern animated U.S. New Deal policies toward Native Americans. The scientists' border-crossing conceptions of modernity, race, evolution, and pluralism were not simple one-way impositions or appropriations, and they had significant effects. In the United States, the resulting approaches to the management of Native American affairs later shaped policies toward immigrants and black Americans, while in Mexico, officials rejected policy prescriptions they associated with U.S. intellectual imperialism and racial segregation. Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt is professor of history at the University of Maryland and the author of Gendered Compromises: Political Cultures and the State in Chile, 1920–1950. "In this history of the social and human sciences in twentieth-century Mexico and the United States, Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt reveals the intricate connections among the development of science, the concept of race in North America, and policy toward indigenous peoples. Her focus is on the anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, physicians, and other experts who collaborated across borders in the midst of the Mexican Revolution through World War II, a period that saw a dynamic academic growth on both sides of the Rio Grande. Rosemblatt traces how these intellectuals forged shared networks in which they discussed indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities, refashioning race as a scientific category and consolidating their influence within their respective national policy circles"-- Provided by publisher Liberalism, race, nation, modernity -- Science and nation in an age of evolution and eugenics, 1910-1934 -- Mexican indigenismo and the international fraternity of science -- Migration, U.S. race thinking, and Pan-American anthropology -- Science and nation in an age of modernization and antiracist populism, 1930-1950 -- From cultural pluralism to a global science of acculturation in the United States -- Cultural and economic evolution, pluralism, and categorization in Mexico -- Race, culture, and class.