Black-Brown Coalitions in Local School Board Elections

Rene R. Rocha, University of Iowa

Abstract

As the racial composition of the United States becomes increasingly diverse, scholars have begun to examine whether interminority, or rainbow, coalitions are feasible. The power thesis suggests that lower levels of social distance between Anglos and Latinos will make the formation of Anglo-Latino coalitions more likely than black-Latino coalitions. This hypothesis is reexamined using fifteen hundred school board election results. The findings offer little evidence for the formation of Anglo-Latino coalitions. There are, however, indications that Anglo-black coalitions form when an area becomes populated by Latino noncitizens, possibly due to the increased social distance this causes between Latinos and other racial/ethnic communities.