Mexicans in the Making of America

by Neil Foley

According to census projections, by 2050 nearly one in three U.S. residents will be Latino, and the overwhelming majority of these will be of Mexican descent. This dramatic demographic shift is reshaping politics, culture, and fundamental ideas about American identity. Neil Foley, a leading Mexican American historian, offers a sweeping view of the evolution of Mexican America, from a colonial outpost on Mexico’s northern frontier to a twenty-first-century people integral to the nation they have helped build. Mexicans have lived in and migrated to the American West and Southwest for centuries. When the United States annexed those territories following the Mexican-American War in 1848, the unequal destinies of the two nations were sealed. Despite their well-established presence in farm fields, workshops, and military service, Mexicans in America have long been regarded as aliens and outsiders. Xenophobic fantasies of a tidal wave of Mexicans overrunning the borders and transforming “real America” beyond recognition have inspired measures ranging from Operation Wetback in the 1950s to Arizona’s draconian SB 1070 anti-immigration law and the 700-mile security fence under construction along the U.S.-Mexican border today. Yet the cultural, linguistic, and economic ties that bind Mexico to the United States continue to grow. Mexicans in the Making of America demonstrates that America has always been a composite of racially blended peoples, never a purely white Anglo-Protestant nation. The struggle of Latinos to gain full citizenship bears witness to the continual remaking of American culture into something more democratic, egalitarian, and truer to its multiracial and multiethnic origins.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2014

Reviews

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should be required reading for everyone. Especially anyone like me who didn't learn any of this history in school. In fact, I learned that Jamestown was the first settlement in the North America, in 1607. I never learned about Fort Augustine in 1565, or had any focus on another Spanish-settled city of Santa Fe, in 1607.

More importantly, this book covers the history in a way that makes it interesting. Just enough dates and names, combined with anecdotes and stories. I learned a lot from the history of the terms Mestizo, Mexican, Indian, Chicano, Hispanic, and more. Especially the history of using Spanish as an ethnicity to differentiate people with lighter skin and sometimes higher class.

There are lot of important events covered, too:
- Mexican independence from Spain
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalogo (when it's often said by people living in the southwest, the "I didn't cross the border, the border crossed me)
- Attempts to re-take the southwest as Aztlán
- Mendez v. Westminster (school segregation case 8 years before Brown v. Board of Education)
- Mexicans fighting with the US during World War II
-Braceros and the changing role of temporary workers from Mexico

Sadly, the history in the US of how Mexcian-Americans are treated seems to track more closely with financial incentives than morality or political party. Farmers demand for more workers changed attitudes more than anything else. Its a surprise which presidents deported the most Mexicans, and which ones supported amnesty.

[Jean Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

**** What is the Nature of America? ****

For the United States, immigration has always, from the very beginning of its history, been an issue fraught with sociological, economic, political and emotional/spiritual overtones. Neil Foley does an admirable job of navigating through the labyrinthine history of Hispanic society in, and immigration to, America, without becoming preachy or falling into polemicism. Such an approach is both refreshing and sorely needed today since the issue has been turned into quite a minefield, due to the conflicting attitudes and policies adopted by the last several U.S. administrations—indeed, as Foley shows, the issue is not new and goes back to the acquisition of the American Southwest in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican War concluded in 1848.

It is difficult to believe that the border was once delineated solely by simple stone “monuments”, markers placed every so often in the deserts between El Paso and San Diego, rather than 30-foot-high steel fences. Somehow this illustrates the two extreme ends of the attitudinal spectrum—Hispanic immigrants could either cross freely, or be shut out completely and/or deported; welcomed as workers and new citizens or feared and hated as agents of change who would transform the very nature of the U.S. population, or even as criminals and terrorists by their very nature.

The statistics Foley presents unquestionably show that the ethnic makeup of American society is changing, and that Hispanics are playing an increasingly important, and vital, role in it—both as workers and as voters; and that they, along with all other immigrants since the country’s inception, are proclaiming “We are Americans!”. Every reader of this book is confronted with the necessity of deciding whether this bodes well or ill for himself or herself, and for the country. Foley clearly believes in the positive nature of Hispanics’ contributions to America’s economy and culture, declaring that it has always been the fundamental nature of American society to be diverse and to welcome all those seeking to better themselves or looking to America as their “last hope island” (to borrow a phrase from Lynne Olson) refuge from persecution; and that those who have spoken or acted in opposition have done so out of fear: fear of the changing demographic nature of America and their own diminished role in it, and fear that the country would no longer match their conception of what it ideally should be. In the current iteration of this continuing story (for it has happened many times before now) it is not difficult to identify who the protagonists of the drama are. For those wishing to clarify their own thinking and/or feelings about this vitally important issue, and are willing to be open-minded about it and let go of any preconceived ideas they may be clinging to, this book will be an invaluable resource.

**** review by Chuck Graham ****

[Shimon de Valencia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well referenced and insightful, this is also a great read. Thoroughly enjoyable and useful for the beginner in Southwestern history and culture as much as it is a handy reference for the experienced reader of all things Mexican-American.

[Mills College Library]

973.04687 F6638 2014