An essential resource for understanding the complex history of Mexican
Americans and racial classification in the United States
Manifest Destinies tells the story of the original Mexican Americans-the
people living in northern Mexico in 1846 during the onset of the Mexican
American War. The war abruptly came to an end two years later, and
115,000 Mexicans became American citizens overnight. Yet their status as
full-fledged Americans was tenuous at best. Due to a variety of legal
and political maneuvers, Mexican Americans were largely confined to a
second class status. How did this categorization occur, and what are the
implications for modern Mexican Americans?
Manifest Destinies fills a gap in American racial history by linking
westward expansion to slavery and the Civil War. In so doing, Laura E
Gómez demonstrates how white supremacy structured a racial hierarchy in
which Mexican Americans were situated relative to Native Americans and
African Americans alike. Steeped in conversations and debates
surrounding the social construction of race, this book reveals how
certain groups become racialized, and how racial categories can not only
change instantly, but also the ways in which they change over time.
This new edition is updated to reflect the most recent evidence
regarding the ways in which Mexican Americans and other Latinos were
racialized in both the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The
book ultimately concludes that it is problematic to continue to speak in
terms Hispanic "ethnicity" rather than consider Latinos qua Latinos
alongside the United States' other major racial groupings. A must read
for anyone concerned with racial injustice and classification today.
Listen to Laura Gómez's interviews on The Brian Lehrer Show, Wisconsin
Public Radio, Texas Public Radio, and KRWG.
