Manifest destinies : the making of the Mexican American race /

Gomez (law, American studies, Univ. of New Mexico; Misconceiving Mothers: Legislators, Prosecutors, and the Politics of Prenatal Drug Exposure, 1997) focuses on the racial attitudes that shaped the identity of Mexican Americans. In this work, she turns to the 19th century to address the perennial issue of "whiteness" and the timely question of who is a citizen. Her well-researched historical case study analyzes the Mexican "racial" community from 1848, when the region was a territory and ceded to the US after the Mexican War, to 1912, when New Mexico became a state. Utilizing concepts of critical legal theory, Gomez develops three themes. First, the historical experience of "colonialism" was "central to the origin of Mexican Americans." Second, laws that discriminated against nonwhite groups helped to create a subordinate Mexican community. Third, Mexicans "as an American racial group" confound the standard black/white racial binary, since Mexicans are neither black nor white. This troubling paradox dates back at least to 1848, when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted citizenship to Mexicans long before US citizenship became legal for nonwhite persons. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. L. J. Quintanilla North Harris College