Fascinating and informative survey documenting how race trials reflected varying attitudes and definitions of "race". At times trial decisions were/are based on science, pseudoscience, flawed concepts of "race", "common sense" (or non-sense), genealogy, or social "performance". And the results also varied by state, and were heavily influenced by the prejudices of the time and location and composition of the jury, or the background and personality of the judge. But outcomes can be viewed as generally maintaining and reinforcing the dominant white power structure. The book parallels, in reciting various race trials, the historical narratives elaborated in (recently deceased) Prof. Ron Takaki's works. It was almost worth going through the whole book to find, on page 305, a reference to a 1987 Supreme Court opinion by Justice Byron White: "...racial categories have no scientific basis, modern or otherwise [and]... the real test of whether a group is a 'race' is whether it has suffered racial discrimination - whether it has been 'racialized', as the academics would say...'racial classifications are for the most part sociopolitical, rather than biological, in nature'". That's what this book demonstrates about the cited race determination trials.

Everyone interested in race, US legal history, citizenship, or immigration should read this book. It manages to combine close readings of freedom trials in the antebellum US, naturalization cases at the turn of the century, battles over the "freedmen," or members of African descent, of the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Creek and Chickasaw tribes, Mexican American fights against segregation, and the ways race was used to limit Native Hawaiian land rights, and provides new information and perspectives on each. This fine book shows the way that race was not defined solely or even primarily by science or descent, but was defined importantly by the "common sense" intuition of those in the dominant race that the subject deserved inclusion and citizenship. The very flexibility of this common sense notion, however, allowed concepts of race to shift to exclude new groups in new ways as laws and times changed. It conveys these insights in a style that is a pleasure to read, and full of fascinating stories and facts (like the common viewpoint that a white person could be known by the high arches of her feet, or the sad reality that a South Asian man committed suicide when the Supreme Court reversed an earlier determination that South Asians were legally white and could become citizens of the United States). Highly recommended!

Ariela Gross has performed a great service by writing a book that can be used a reference for anyone (teachers, journalists, etc.) who THINKS they know about racial classification in the U.S. Gross does not do everything well. Frank W. Sweet has written a more comprehensive account of U.S. racial classification trials: Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise And Triumph of the One-drop Rule; Lawrence R. Tenzer has written a better book on the political importance of antebellum white slaves: The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue and Virginia Dominguez has written a comprehensive account of racial classification among Louisiana Creoles (a group that Gross neglects)White by Definition: Social Classification in Creole Louisiana. What Gross has done is combine accounts of racial classification trials involving Latinos (especially Mexicans), Indians, Asians, native Hawaiians, Armenians, Arabs, as well as the usual Anglo part-black mixed-race people. Gross even includes the Melungeons, Lumbees and others formerly called "tri-racial isolates" (See Walking Toward The Sunset: The Melungeons Of Appalachia (Melungeons: History, Culture, Ethnicity, & Literature) and The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People : An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleansing in America). This really impressed me, because most American historians on "race" are totally ignorant of those groups, don't understand their importance, and rarely mention them.

If you read this book, you will overcome any "Imitation of Life" image of what it means to have your "whiteness" challenged. The so-called "one drop" myth is mainly a 20th century invention; "whiteness" has always been an evolving and contradictory concept. "Black blood" was not only legally allowed in the "white race," but the "performance" of whiteness (exercising the rights of whites and socializing with whites)was usually more important in a racial classification trial than degrees of "black blood."

Because immigration was legally restricted to "whites," (assumed to be European), immigrants who did not come from Europe (Arabs, Armenians, Asians, part-Asians, etc.) had to "prove" in court that they were "white." This subject has been covered in detail by Ian Haney Lopez: White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Critical America Series).

Mexicans were made citizens by treaty (regardless of race) when the U.S. took Mexican territories after the Mexican-American War. This was a major contradiction because few Mexicans are really "white" compared to European-Americans (They are a mixture of Indian, Spanish and African). Their legal whiteness was usually combined with a de facto "racial" segregation from "other" whites. Neil Foley has written extensively on this subject: The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (American Crossroads, 2). Gross should be praised for including the Mexican-American effort to be labeled "white" in the same book with part-black Anglos and other groups. Most historians try to act like these groups have nothing in common.

The major flaw in the book is the Conclusion, in which Gross indulges in a fashionable and politically correct rant against those who believe that racial classifications should not be asked for or legally enforced (affirmative action, the census, etc.). Her Conclusion contradicts the evidence of her own research. Skip the Conclusion and enjoy the rest of the book.