Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice. By Ian F. Haney López. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. xii, 324 pp. $27.95, isbn 0-674-01068-X.)

Abstract

Ian F. Haney López is a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. He writes that “Race as common sense is more than just ideas. The common sense of race also informs repertoires of behavior” (p. 7). To prove his thesis, he analyzes court cases beginning with that of the East Los Angeles school walkouts in 1968 and ending with the Biltmore Six case of the early 1970s in Los Angeles. Common to these events is the legendary but mercurial Chicano attorney Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, who represented the Chicano community. Haney López's work must be read in the context of LatCrit or Latina and Latino legal theory school, which emerged from the legal academy in 1995 as an offshoot of critical legal studies. Latino legal scholars, recognizing the power of the law, use an alternative narrative to illustrate complex legal points to challenge and perhaps shift the dominant paradigm. Because he is a legal scholar, Haney's narrative resembles a courtroom in which he attempts to convince the jury of the validity of his narrative.