As immigrants came to the United States from Mexico, the term "Greater Mexico" was coined to specify the area of their greatest concentration. America's southwest border was soon heavily populated with Mexico's people, culture, and language. In Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999, however, Jorge Iber shows this Greater Mexico was even greater than presumed as he explores the Hispanic population in one of the "whitest" states in the Union--Utah. By 1997, Hispanics were a notable part of Utah's population as they could be found in all of the state's major cities working in tourist, industrial, and service occupations. Although these characteristics reflect the population trends in other states, Iber centers on those aspects that set Utah's Hispanic comunidad apart from the rest. Iber focuses on the significance of why many in the Utah Hispanic comunidad are leaving Catholicism for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). He examines how conversion affects the Spanish-speaking population and how these Hispanic believers are affecting the Mormon Church. Iber also concentrates on the geographic separation of Hispanics in Utah from their Mexican, Latin American, New Mexican, and Coloradoan roots. He examines patterns of Hispanic assimilation and acculturation in a setting which is vastly different from other Western and Southwestern states. Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999 is an important source for scholars in ethnic studies, American studies, religion, and Western history. Drawing on both oral and written histories collected by the University of Utah and many notable organizations including the American G.I. Forum, SOCIO, Centro de la Familia, the Salt Lake Catholic Diocese, and the LDS Church, Iber has compiled an interesting and informative study of the experience of Hispanics in Utah, which represents "another fragment in the expanding mosaic that is the history of the Spanish-speaking people of the United States."

Most of the findings in this book are based on the work of a team of researchers from Urban Affairs Programs at Michigan State University. From 1976 to 1981, the team observed the progress of school desegregation in metropolitan Wil mington, Delaware, which encompasses New Castle County. The project was made possible by a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Division of Social Sciences. Metropolitan desegregation is a strategy deserving of national attention because this country's black population has become increasingly concentrated within central cities. Desegregation solutions must be found that encompass America's white suburbs as well as its urban areas. In a 1977 statement, the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights called metro politan school desegregation "the last frontier to be crossed in the long judicial effort to make equal educational opportunity . . . a living reality. " Moreover, the National Task Force on Desegregation Strategies concluded in 1979, The simple demographic fact is that many large city school districts cannot desegregate by themselves. For children in such districts, the best hope for attending a desegregated school lies in the implementation of metropolitan desegregation strat egies--i. e. , desegregation plans which do not stop at the city line, but rather encom pass at least some of the surrounding suburban areas. (p. 1) The Michigan State University research team began its investigation in New Castle County, Delaware, after a three-judge federal district court ruled that area schools were illegally segregated between districts.