Struck by Lightning? Interracial Intimacy and Racial Justice

Abstract

* Kevin R. Johnson, A.B., University of California, Berkeley, J.D., Harvard Law School, is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California at Davis. His published works include Mixed America and the Law: A Reader (NYU Press, 2002); A Reader on Race, Civil Rights, and the Law: A Multiracial Approach (Carolina Academic Press, 2001); and How Did You Get to Be Mexican? A White/Brown Man's Search for Identity (Temple University Press, 1999). Some of the ideas expressed here were presented at the 2001 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting and the Race Mixture in the Americas conference at American University, Washington College of Law, in November 2001. Richard Banks, Brian Bix, Christopher David Ruiz Cameron, Bob Lawless, George A. Martinez, Mary Romero, and Leti Volpp offered helpful comments. Dean Rex Perschbacher provided intellectual and other support necessary for completion of this essay. Thanks to Rachel Moran for the inspiration. ** Kristina Burrows is a Staff Attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance; with a J.D. from the University of California, Davis. 1. Rachel F. Moran is the Robert D. and Leslie Kay-Raven Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall). Moran is the author of influential scholarship, including Rachel F. Moran, Diversity and Its Discontents: The End of Affirmative Action at Boalt Hall, 88 Cal. L. Rev. 2241 (2000); Rachel F. Moran, What if Latinos Really Mattered in the Public Policy Debate?, 85 Cal. L. Rev. 1316 (1997); Rachel F. Moran, Demography and Distrust: The Latino Challenge to Civil Rights and Immigration Policy in the 1990s and Beyond, 8 La Raza L.J. 1 (1995); Rachel F. Moran, Irritation and Intrigue: The Intricacies of Language Rights and Language Policy, 85 Nw. U.L. Rev. 790 (1991); Rachel F. Moran, The Politics of Discretion: Federal Intervention in Bilingual Education, 76 Cal. L. Rev. 1249 (1988); Rachel F. Moran, Bilingual Education as a Status Conflict, 75 Cal. L. Rev. 321 (1987). 2. Rachel F. Moran, Interracial Intimacy: The Regulation of and Romance 14 (2001).