![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gilda_eliseby Gregory Rodriguez
Wide-ranging and provocative, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds offers an unprecedented account of the long-term cultural and political influences that Mexican Americans will have on the collective character of our nation.
In considering the largest immigrant group in American history, Gregory Rodriguez examines the complexities of its heritage and of the racial and cultural synthesis--mestizaje--that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Rodriguez deftly delineates the effects of mestizaje throughout the centuries, traces the northern movement of this "mongrelization," explores the emergence of a new Mexican American identity in the 1930s, and analyzes the birth and death of the Chicano movement. Vis-a-vis the present era of Mexican American confidence, he persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration in to the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but how we envision our nation.
Deeply informative--as historically sound as it is anecdotally rich, brilliantly reasoned, and highly though provoking--Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is a major contribution to the discussion of the cultural and political future of the United States.
An in-depth look at the history of the mestizo, which originally meant children from a Spanish parent and an Indian one, but which came to describe Mexicans as there country became a mestizo one. Eventually, Mexican-Americans would be included in that description.
Though there is a great deal of information, both about the people and the land, the book is never dry. Rather, it’s a fascinating trip through the history of Mexico and the land that would become the American Southwest.
What struck me the most was how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Every time the economy took a dive, immigrants from south of the border would be blamed, and draconian laws would be put into affect. Sound familiar? But there is no learning from history. It didn’t stop the flow north before; I doubt it will this time, either.
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. ReDeus: Divine Tales
2. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
3. The Exodus Quest
4. Troy: Shield Of Thunder
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
6. Hyperion
7. Thin Air
8. Gods and Generals
9. White Seed
10. The Killer Angels
11. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
12. Troy: Fall of Kings
13. The Last Full Measure
14. Gwendy's Button Box
15. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
16. Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
17. The Mists of Avalon
18. In The Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama
19. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
20. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #2)
21. The Lost Labyrinth
22. Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West
23. A Brief History of Phoenix
24. Point of Contact
25. Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War
26. The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
27. God: The Human Quest to Make Sense of the Divine
28. The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog
29. Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
30. Fire In the Sea
31. The Song of Troy
32. From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava
33. Helen of Troy
34. The Selkie
35. Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War
36. Grief Cottage
37. Beyond the Gates
38. Knock Knock
39. Mr. Mercedes
40. Finders Keepers
41. The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother
42. The Bones of Avalon
43. Field Notes from a Catastrophe
44. End of Watch
45. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
46. Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America
Wide-ranging and provocative, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds offers an unprecedented account of the long-term cultural and political influences that Mexican Americans will have on the collective character of our nation.
In considering the largest immigrant group in American history, Gregory Rodriguez examines the complexities of its heritage and of the racial and cultural synthesis--mestizaje--that has defined the Mexican people since the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Rodriguez deftly delineates the effects of mestizaje throughout the centuries, traces the northern movement of this "mongrelization," explores the emergence of a new Mexican American identity in the 1930s, and analyzes the birth and death of the Chicano movement. Vis-a-vis the present era of Mexican American confidence, he persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration in to the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but how we envision our nation.
Deeply informative--as historically sound as it is anecdotally rich, brilliantly reasoned, and highly though provoking--Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is a major contribution to the discussion of the cultural and political future of the United States.
An in-depth look at the history of the mestizo, which originally meant children from a Spanish parent and an Indian one, but which came to describe Mexicans as there country became a mestizo one. Eventually, Mexican-Americans would be included in that description.
Though there is a great deal of information, both about the people and the land, the book is never dry. Rather, it’s a fascinating trip through the history of Mexico and the land that would become the American Southwest.
What struck me the most was how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Every time the economy took a dive, immigrants from south of the border would be blamed, and draconian laws would be put into affect. Sound familiar? But there is no learning from history. It didn’t stop the flow north before; I doubt it will this time, either.
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. ReDeus: Divine Tales
2. 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
3. The Exodus Quest
4. Troy: Shield Of Thunder
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
6. Hyperion
7. Thin Air
8. Gods and Generals
9. White Seed
10. The Killer Angels
11. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
12. Troy: Fall of Kings
13. The Last Full Measure
14. Gwendy's Button Box
15. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
16. Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition
17. The Mists of Avalon
18. In The Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to Barack Obama
19. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
20. The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos #2)
21. The Lost Labyrinth
22. Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the U.S. Army and the Invasion That Opened the West
23. A Brief History of Phoenix
24. Point of Contact
25. Gone for Soldiers: A Novel of the Mexican War
26. The Gap into Conflict: The Real Story
27. God: The Human Quest to Make Sense of the Divine
28. The Dog Master: A Novel of the First Dog
29. Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
30. Fire In the Sea
31. The Song of Troy
32. From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava
33. Helen of Troy
34. The Selkie
35. Conquest: The English Kingdom of France in the Hundred Years War
36. Grief Cottage
37. Beyond the Gates
38. Knock Knock
39. Mr. Mercedes
40. Finders Keepers
41. The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother
42. The Bones of Avalon
43. Field Notes from a Catastrophe
44. End of Watch
45. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
46. Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2018-12-25 08:40 pm (UTC)If it weren't brown people, it'd be women. Simple-minded humans (and that's most, regardless of nationality) need an other to blame for their troubles. I can't see that human tendency ever going away. I chuckle to realize the people who are so hostile to brown people don't get that the majority of persons on the planet has NEVER been white, and it never will be. If you look at the broad history of the world, brown is the color of humanity.
White middle class Christian First World people need to get through their heads that there is nothing innately more worthy about being that.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-26 01:27 pm (UTC)Still, it's depressing to think that people still hold those ideas. Race is a social construct put into place so that one people could subjugate another. Wow, that's some history to be proud of.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-26 06:13 pm (UTC)Science says we're different. It's people who then start ranking those differences (with themselves at the top, of course). It's one of the reasons I hate hearing racists or sexists quote science and then mangle it into "proving" they're superior. Science doesn't say any race or gender is superior because science is facts, not ego.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-26 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 03:08 am (UTC)Well, they exist. How much they matter is totally open to interpretation. Therein lies our problem. Humans will always find a reason to say "that group that is demonstrably not like me is inferior because [made up reason]." If we didn't have races, we have genders, or religions, or nationalities, or height, or weight .... If we didn't have those, we'd have "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." It's a human trait to need to divide other humans into "acceptable" and "nonacceptable." It's fear and a weak ego and a desire to have all the toys. It's about being top dog. There's no science and no logic to it (well, beyond the logic that it's always better to be a winner than a loser).
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 12:18 pm (UTC)Yeah, there is that. As if they're ashamed of actually saying "I want to be top dog and have all the toys." And I understand that it's just evolution, the fear of the other, but for people who, by and large, don't even believe in evolution, they sure as hell buy into the idea.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-27 08:11 pm (UTC)Yes. No one wants to think of himself as evil. A lot of the most hate-filled people call themselves Christians. "But there's a good reason we hate [name group]!" Or even "I don't hate them!!! I'm a Christian! I love them. I just want them to not have any human rights until they're just like me!" Followed by nonsense that makes them feel better about themselves for treating someone different from them as if they are subhuman.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-28 11:50 am (UTC)And the contradictions in that statement are totally lost on them.