ABSTRACT
Sometimes privileged as White, other times discriminated against as Black, and often invisible in the U.S. Black-White racial dichotomy, the racial complexities and realities of Mexican American communities can go unnoticed. This makes Mexican American histories difficult to teach, as their racialized experiences do not fit neatly into how the U.S. has conceptualized race relations as a Black-White paradigm. Mexican Americans are neither, yet are racialized as either Black or White at different times in U.S. history. Adding greater complexity is that Mexican American communities are to varying degrees a mix of Indigenous, Black, and European ancestry. Mexican Americans are neither Black nor White, but both.
