The Color of America Has Changed

This book examines the Civil Rights Movement in the West in order to bring the West to the Civil Rights Movement. In particular, it explores the challenge that racial diversity in California posed for building a multiracial civil rights movement. Mark Brilliant examines the state's crazy-quilt Jim Crow-style laws and legislation, including fair employment practices, old age pensions for non-citizens, fair housing, school desegregation, and bilingual education. Discrimination in California was not only racial, but was also affected by citizenship status, perceptions of "foreignness," language issues, agricultural vs. industrial occupation, and rural vs. urban residence. These different axes of discrimination pointed to different and sometimes conflicting avenues of legislative and legal redress.