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.