Molly Rosner. Playing with History: American Identities and Children's Consumer Culture New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2021. 193 pp.

school segregation as a Black-White issue” (102). This widespread belief has consequential implications for Mexican American educational history, in that “the segregation of Mexican Americans has been framed by scholars as de facto because it was the product of local custom and because state governments in the Southwest never sanctioned it” (103). Upending this widespread interpretation, the authors argue that “policies resulting in the segregation of Mexican American students were intended to keep them apart from White children, no matter the pedagogical or other rationale provided, and should retroactively be considered de jure segregation” (104). Donato and Hanson convincingly contend that, as long as it engenders racial segregation, any “government action”—whether it is a formal law at the state level or a resolution at the local level—should be considered de jure segregation (104). Categorizing Mexican American segregation as de facto obfuscates the “deliberate and racial nature” of it (104). Written in clear, straightforward prose, The Other American Dilemma will be of interest to scholars of education history, Mexican American history, the history of the Mexican Consulate, and ethnic studies, and is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students alike. Using transnational sources to uncover connections between ethnic groups in the United States, this essential text forces us to think more capaciously about how we understand Mexican American and African American educational histories, and the connections between the two.