"Tanya Kateri Hernandez traces the 'myth of racial innocence' in which Latin America shrouds itself, and then she shatters it. This book is a crucial corrective for anyone interested in race in Latin America. Or in the United States, which increasingly proclaims its own mythical innocence."
Ian Haney Lopez, John H. Boalt Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley

"Finally we have a serious, comprehensive, and accessible book on racial matters in Latin America. Professor Hernandez skillfully shows how 'customary law' has been used by states in the region to maintain racial order (i.e., white supremacy) since independence. This is a major contribution and, from now on, no one can believe anymore that racism is not part of the Latin American experience. Bravo Professor Hernandez for a job well done!"
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Professor of Sociology, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Duke University

"Racial Subordination in Latin America reveals the folly of post-racial thinking in the United States, where a legal system of segregation and classification are thought to underlie racial difference, inequality, discrimination and segregation. In the minds of post-racialists, such divisions have been presumably laid to rest with the civil rights revolution and the recent election of a black president. By contrast, Latin American countries have rarely used explicit race-based laws to structure their societies. Thus, one could say that 'postracial' societies existed south of the U.S. border long before they did in the U.S. However, racial discrimination and inequality have been rampant throughout that region. With this book, legal scholar Tanya K. Hernandez now compels us to rethink how apparently progressive national ideologies and cultural norms continue to structure deep-seated racism and inequality in modern societies, despite the absence of legal structures."
Edward E. Telles, Professor of Sociology, Princeton University

"Hernández has constructed a well-written accessible analysis of racial subordination that deserves a wide audience in and beyond Latin America, especially among policy makers. Summing up: highly recommended. All readership levels."
C. H. Blake, Choice