+This is a slightly different version of a paper of the same title which I presented at the American Anthropological Association’s Conference on Race and Human Variation held in Alexandria, Virginia, in September 2004. The Association has kindly granted permission for the use of this paper.

*Professor of Law, Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley. My thanks to Professor Michael A. Olivas for his dedicated efforts to raise Hernandez v. Texas to its proper place in legal history as well as in the pantheon of great constitutional cases.

¹Brown v. Bd. of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

²Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954). For an earlier article on Hernandez v. Texas, see IAN HANEY LÓPEZ, RACE, ETHNICITY, ERASURE: THE SALIENCE OF RACE TO LATCRIT THEORY, 85 CAL. L. REV. 1143 (1998); see also IAN HANEY LÓPEZ, HERNANDEZ VS. BROWN, N.Y. TIMES, May 21, 2004, A2.

³CLARE SHERIDAN, “ANOTHER WHITE RACE”; MEXICAN AMERICANS AND THE PARADOX OF WHITENESS IN JURY SELECTION, 21 LAW & HIST. REV. 109, 138-39 (2003).

⁴Hernandez, 347 U.S. at 478.

⁵Id. at 477 (emphasis added).

⁶I discuss the early racialization of Mexicans at length in IAN HANEY LÓPEZ, RACISM ON TRIAL: THE CHICANO FIGHT FOR JUSTICE (2003).

⁷See REGINALD HORSMAN, RACE AND MANIFEST DESTINY: THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN RACIAL ANGLO-SAXONISM (1981).

⁸See generally THEORIES OF ETHNICITY: A CLASSICAL READER (Werner Sollors ed., 1996); MATHEW FRYE JACOBSON, WHITENESS OF A DIFFERENT COLOR: EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS AND THE ALCHEMY OF RACE (1998).

⁹On the “other white” legal strategy, see Steven H. Wilson, Brown over “Other White”: Mexican Americans’ Legal Arguments and Litigation Strategy in School Desegregation Lawsuits, 21 LAW & HIST. REV. 145 (2003).

¹⁰Brief for Petitioner at 38, Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954) (No. 406). See also Neil Foley, Becoming Hispanic: Mexican Americans and the Faustian Pact with Whiteness, in REFLEXIONES 1997: NEW DIRECTIONS IN MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES 53 (Neil Foley ed., 1997).

¹¹Gustavo C. García, An Informal Report to the People, in A COTTON PICKER FINDS JUSTICE: THE SAGA OF THE HERNANDEZ CASE (Ruben Munguia ed., 1954), in Appendix.

¹²Ramirez v. State, 40 S.W.2d 138, 138 (Tex. Crim. App. 1931).

¹³Id. at 139-40.

¹⁴Hernandez v. State, 251 S.W.2d 531, 536 (Tex. Crim. App. 1951), rev’d, 347 U.S. 475 (1954).

¹⁵Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 478-79 (1954).

¹⁶HANEY LÓPEZ, supra note 6, esp. chap. 5.

¹⁷GUADALUPE SAN MIGUEL, JR., “LET THEM ALL TAKE HEED”: MEXICAN AMERICANS AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUALITY IN TEXAS, 1910-1981, at 32 (1987).

¹⁸Transcript of Hearing on Motion to Quash Jury Panel and Motion to Quash the Indictment at 84-87, State v. Hernandez (Dist. Ct. Jackson Co., Oct. 4, 1951) (No. 2091), reprinted in Transcript of Record at 74-75, Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954) (No. 406). This testimony relates to experiences with the school in the early 1940s. By 1948, there were apparently two teachers and two rooms in the district’s “Latin American school.” Id. at 51. The Court relies on these latter figures. Hernandez, 347 U.S. at 479 n.10.

¹⁹Brief for Petitioner at 19, Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954) (No. 406); U.S. BUREAU OF THE CENSUS, U.S. CENSUS OF POPULATION: 1950, VOLUME IV: SPECIAL REPORTS: PERSONS OF SPANISH SURNAMES, at 3C-67 (1953).

²⁰NEIL FOLEY, THE WHITE SCOURGE: MEXICANS, BLACKS, AND POOR WHITES IN TEXAS COTTON CULTURE (1997); DAVID MONTEJANO, ANGLOS AND MEXICANS IN THE MAKING OF TEXAS, 1836-1986 (1987).

²¹Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1879).

²²McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987).

²³Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989).

²⁴Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991).

²⁵Id. at 375 (O’Connor, J., concurring) (emphasis added).

²⁶McCleskey, 481 U.S. at 327.

²⁷Id. at 297.

²⁸Id. at 326.

²⁹Id. at 312.

³⁰Id. at 312-13.

³¹Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475, 482 (1954).

³²Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200, 240 (1995) (Thomas, J., concurring).

³³García, supra note 11.

³⁴Ian F. Haney López, Institutional Racism: Judicial Conduct and a New Theory of Racial Discrimination, 109 YALE L.J. 1717 (2000).

³⁵Regents of Univ. of Cal. v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 292, 295-96 (1978).

³⁶United States 371, 436-37 (1980) (Rehnquist, J.)