Brown and Blue

"Brown and Blue is a timely volume. . . [as] once again Mexican Americans find themselves at the sharp end of increasingly vicious law enforcement and immigration agencies. [This is] a policing history that is, surprisingly, not well known.”—Latin American Review of Books

“A critical historical perspective.”—Society for US Intellectual History Blog

“[An] excellent and poignant work. . . . [It is] rare to see an author’s personality come through in a historical monograph, but Behnken is genuine in his approach to the problem of over policing Mexican American communities.”—Pacific Historical Review

“In today’s highly charged political atmosphere, Brown and Blue is a timely, powerful, provoking, and much-needed first-class education in the dynamics of 'ethnic control' that reveals the troubling realities of (in)justice in the US Southwest and helps us to better understand the American experience while advancing police reform, justice, and human dignity.” —Martin Guevara Urbina, coauthor of Latino Police Officers in the United States: Practice, Policy, and Leadership

“A tour de force account of police brutality against Mexican and Mexican American people in the US Southwest. This important book places police brutality against Mexican and Mexican American people at the very center of carceral histories.”—Robert T. Chase, author of We Are Not Slaves: State Violence, Coerced Labor, and Prisoners’ Rights in Postwar America

“A vitally needed study of the relationship between law enforcement, violence, and Chicano civil rights activism across the Southwest.”—Max Felker-Kantor, author of DARE to Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools