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A Black and Brown Rainbow? Levels of Policy Congruence and Cooperation between African American and Latino National Organizations in the 20th and 21st Centuries

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posted on 2012-07-20, 00:00 authored by Carmen Orozco-Acosta

This dissertation explores the policy positions and advocacy work of four national organizations – the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), and the National Council of la Raza (NCLR) – throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, in three policy areas. Immigration reform, the Voting Rights Act reauthorizations, and education policy, with subcases within each umbrella topic, are assessed.

The policy cases were selected to represent and test three possible models of Black-Latino organizational behavior respectively: an “Ethnic Politics Model” exhibiting competitive behavior and conflict, a “People of Color” model of cooperation, and finally, a “Tacit Non‐Cooperation” model where groups work independently even when they have the same positions and policy ends/goals. Five hypotheses were examined to explain Black‐Latino organizational behavior and a fourth model, named the “Power Asymmetry Model” was developed.

While the Ethnic Politics Model did not explain the behavior of the organizations around immigration policy in the contemporary period, it was an accurate depiction of behavior in the 1970s and 1980s on immigration reform efforts, such as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Support for immigrant rights and collaboration around the 2006 national immigration marches is more representative of the People of Color Model and explanation of behavior.

The People of Color model was predicted for organizational behavior around the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The model was not accurate for Black­‐Latino organizational behavior during the reauthorizations of the 1970s and 1980s, when the VRA was expanded beyond African Americans to include “language minorities.” In the contemporary period, civil rights organizations work closely together to preserve the integrity of the bill and to fight off legal challenges, especially following the most recent reauthorization in 2006. The same trend was found – a shift from conflict to cooperation over time, with the Power Asymmetry Model as the best explanation for tensions between Black and Latino groups during the earlier time period.

Finally, in the education policy field, the Tacit Non-­‐Cooperation model was predicted for the two subcases: No Child Left Behind and the charter school debate. In general the groups appeared to work more frequently within their own racial group than across racial groups on education reform, but there were a few important exceptions, such as the Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE). CHSE is a new type of multi‐racial coalition in which every racial and ethnic group is represented, with a primary purpose to help solve the high school dropout crisis. The trend towards cooperation between Black and Latino organizations continues to grow, especially as there is a public demand for multicultural organizational representation, among various other reasons.

History

Date Modified

2022-06-24

Defense Date

2012-07-20

CIP Code

  • 45.1001

Research Director(s)

Dianne M. Pinderhughes

Degree

  • Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Level

  • Doctoral Dissertation

Alternate Identifier

1331799920

Library Record

6236065

OCLC Number

1331799920

Program Name

  • Political Science

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