Tierra y Libertad

• DOI: 10.1177/2153368712456212
• Date: 01 October 2012
• Published date: 01 October 2012
• Author: Ed A. Muñoz
• Subject Matter: Book Review

Book Review

Steven W. Bender

Tierra y Libertad: Land, Liberty, and Latino Housing New York, NY: New York University Press,

2010. 256 pp. $39.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-0-8147-9125-7

Reviewed by: Ed A. Mun

˜oz, Chicano Studies and Criminal Justice, University of Wyoming, Laramie,

WY, USA

DOI: 10.1177/2153368712456212

Accomplished legal scholar Steven W. Bender accentuates the critical meaning of

access to affordable and adequate housing for all Americans in general, and especially

Latinas/Latinos in Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty). His expertise is manifest

additionally through numerous authored and coauthored law review articles and books

dealing with real estate transactions, the impact of Latina/Latino stereotypes on legal

jurisprudence, Latino politics, language policy, and border policy. In Tierra y

Libertad, Bender meticulously demonstrates how home ownership can help alleviate

many of the often discussed social, economic, and political disadvantages

disproportionately experienced by the burgeoning U.S. Latino population.

An extensive interdisciplinary review of scholarly, governmental, nongovern-

mental, and media sources overwhelmingly points to home ownership (tierra or land)

as a reliable springboard to economic security and independence (libertad or liberty).

Interesting home ownership correlations include but are not limited to lower dropout

and teen pregnancy rates; disparities in wealth acquisition; higher educational

achievement and socioeconomic status; and higher civic participation. Home own-

ership is important for Latinas/Latinos culturally as well since Latinas/Latinos tend to

be more family oriented than most other racial/ethnic groups. Thus, home ownership

often translates for Latinas/Latinos into higher self-esteem, self-efficacy, physical

health, and overall happiness. However, historical and contemporary forms of

individual and institutional prejudice, racism, and discrimination have plagued the

acquisition of tierra y libertad for U.S. Latinas/Latinos.

The book contains four major parts. In Part I, ‘‘Loss,’’Bender describes stereotypes

portraying Mexicans, and later other Latinas/Latinos, as lazy stewards of the land

content to live in squalor-like conditions with little ambition for improvement. This

widely held view implicitly underlined the ideological concept of Manifest Destiny

that justified the mid-19th-century Anglo American military takeover of the northern

Mexican borderlands. Shortly thereafter, legal land grant certification processes, and

extralegal squatter and vigilante violence became the primary means to divest land

and property from Mexicans remaining in the region, despite purported guarantees

Race and Justice

2(4) 392-395

ªThe Author(s) 2012

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