It's Not Over

Arizona's "Brownout" Draws Backlash



"Every time that someone asks to see your papers,
Hitler's family collects a royalty."
-- Seth Myers, SNL Weekend Update, 4/24/10





The publisher's description of Brown: The Last Discovery of America
by Richard Rodriguez (2001)

America is browning. As politicians, schoolteachers, and grandparents attempt to decipher what that might mean, Richard Rodriguez argues America has been brown from its inception, as he himself is.

For Rodriguez, brown is not a singular color. Brown is evidence of mixture. At the core of the book is an assessment of the meaning of Hispanics to the life of America. Reflecting upon the new demographic profile of our country, Rodriguez observes that Hispanics are becoming Americanized at the same rate that the United States is becoming Latinized. Hispanics are coloring an American identity that traditionally has chosen to describe itself as black and white.