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Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America
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. He persuasively argues that the rapidly expanding Mexican American integration into the mainstream is changing not only how Americans think about race but also how we envision our nation. Brilliantly reasoned, highly thought provoking, and as historically sound as it is anecdotally rich, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds is a major contribution to the discussion of the cultural and political future of the United States.From the Trade Paperback edition.
- GenresNonfictionHistoryRace
Kindle Edition
First published October 23, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
February 21, 2013
In Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds, Gregory Rodriguez tackles Mexican/Hispanic/Latino identity formation and politics beginning with 16th century Spanish expansionism and ending in the late 1990s in the U.S. Southwest. Rodriguez carefully lays out the various social hierarchies at play in each era and relates them to the race/ethnicity formation of Mexicans/Mexican Americans.
While this book is filled with history, legal cases, and first person anecdotes, it never felt dry or boring. Rodriguez's style is that of interested journalism--part history, part sociology relayed in a conversational manner with plenty of factual back up. I learned quite a bit from this book. It expanded on what I already knew and held plenty of surprises.
I really enjoyed the way that Rodriguez looked at Latino male and female experience throughout history. My one gripe has to do with the taken for granted normative masculinity and compulsory heterosexuality in this book. However, I recognize that you can't do it all, and I applaud how much this book gets done.
While this book is filled with history, legal cases, and first person anecdotes, it never felt dry or boring. Rodriguez's style is that of interested journalism--part history, part sociology relayed in a conversational manner with plenty of factual back up. I learned quite a bit from this book. It expanded on what I already knew and held plenty of surprises.
I really enjoyed the way that Rodriguez looked at Latino male and female experience throughout history. My one gripe has to do with the taken for granted normative masculinity and compulsory heterosexuality in this book. However, I recognize that you can't do it all, and I applaud how much this book gets done.
December 22, 2018
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.
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.
August 2, 2013
Gregory Rodriguez pulls off the arduous task of presenting a trove of data - there are 40 pages of endnotes - and history in a highly readable way. Making the task more challenging is the very nature of "race" for Mexican-Americans. Hernan Cortez and his fellow conquistadores didn't bring wives; this book is the most detailed I've read in terms of a frank discussion of the cohabitation and intermarriage that between Spaniards and indigenous Amerindians, as well as the small number of other European immigrants and African slaves brought to Mexico. The onslaught of European diseases like smallpox decimated the Aztecs, Mayans and other Native American groups. Today, the overwhelming majority of Mexicans are a mix of European, Indian and sometimes, African.
This book covers the ugly racism of the colonial era, such as the ridiculous 16 racial castes of the Spanish, often illustrated in helpful paintings and the source of terms like “mulatto”, “sambo”, etc. From the beginning of Anglo-American and Mexican interaction, it's been complicated. Anglo settlers entered Mexican Texas and New Mexico; huge numbers rushed into Mexican California in the gold rush. We learn how the USA took almost half of Mexico's territory as settlement of the Mexican-American War, but would have taken more if not for the Mexican residents. The half that was ceded to the US was largely depopulated, including a mere 1% of Mexico's residents. American racism, perversely, helped maintain Mexico's independence since virtually no Manifest Destiny promoters wanted to make American citizens and voters out of the other 99% of Mexico's residents.
The Mexicans incorporated in to the USA after the Treaty of Guadalupe were largely mistreated. Lynchings better known in the southern black belt did also occur for Mexican-Americans in Texas and California. Racially aware America wasn't sure how to even classify the "mongrel" mestizo Mexicans. I learned from the book that the original Hispanic racial classification on Census forms actually came in the 1930's from nativist Anglo elements that had objected to classifying Mexicans as "white". Surprisingly, until 1935, an oversight in American immigration law meant "whites" and "blacks" were allowed to enter the United States, but not "Indians." A ridiculous game of trying to determine if Mexican immigrants were more "white" or "Indian" was used and actually prevented some dark-skinned Mexicans from becoming US citizens.
Still, some Mexican Americans prospered and Mexico's own economic and political troubles pushed more and more migrants to El Norte. The book carefully follows the Mexican-American experience in the 20th Century, culminating in the present situation where Latinos are the largest group in many states, including Texas and California. Mexican-Americans become less Mexican over time; a mere 38% of 3rd generation Mexican-Americans even know Spanish, since English is the dominant language. What of race? Are mestizo Mexican-Americans white, black, Indian, "Hispanic", a mix, or the recently added Census category of "other race"? Clearly, the situation has improved mightily for Mexican-Americans, so much so that it isn't even clear that "Mexican-American" is all that different from any other "-American" subgroup amongst the acculturated middle class.
This book covers the ugly racism of the colonial era, such as the ridiculous 16 racial castes of the Spanish, often illustrated in helpful paintings and the source of terms like “mulatto”, “sambo”, etc. From the beginning of Anglo-American and Mexican interaction, it's been complicated. Anglo settlers entered Mexican Texas and New Mexico; huge numbers rushed into Mexican California in the gold rush. We learn how the USA took almost half of Mexico's territory as settlement of the Mexican-American War, but would have taken more if not for the Mexican residents. The half that was ceded to the US was largely depopulated, including a mere 1% of Mexico's residents. American racism, perversely, helped maintain Mexico's independence since virtually no Manifest Destiny promoters wanted to make American citizens and voters out of the other 99% of Mexico's residents.
The Mexicans incorporated in to the USA after the Treaty of Guadalupe were largely mistreated. Lynchings better known in the southern black belt did also occur for Mexican-Americans in Texas and California. Racially aware America wasn't sure how to even classify the "mongrel" mestizo Mexicans. I learned from the book that the original Hispanic racial classification on Census forms actually came in the 1930's from nativist Anglo elements that had objected to classifying Mexicans as "white". Surprisingly, until 1935, an oversight in American immigration law meant "whites" and "blacks" were allowed to enter the United States, but not "Indians." A ridiculous game of trying to determine if Mexican immigrants were more "white" or "Indian" was used and actually prevented some dark-skinned Mexicans from becoming US citizens.
Still, some Mexican Americans prospered and Mexico's own economic and political troubles pushed more and more migrants to El Norte. The book carefully follows the Mexican-American experience in the 20th Century, culminating in the present situation where Latinos are the largest group in many states, including Texas and California. Mexican-Americans become less Mexican over time; a mere 38% of 3rd generation Mexican-Americans even know Spanish, since English is the dominant language. What of race? Are mestizo Mexican-Americans white, black, Indian, "Hispanic", a mix, or the recently added Census category of "other race"? Clearly, the situation has improved mightily for Mexican-Americans, so much so that it isn't even clear that "Mexican-American" is all that different from any other "-American" subgroup amongst the acculturated middle class.
November 13, 2012
"Historian Charles Gibson labeled the colonial mestizo a 'pragmatic opportunist.' According to anthropologist Eric Wolf, the mestizo's 'chances of survival lay neither in accumulating cultural furniture nor in cleaving to cultural norms, but in an ability to change, to adapt, to improvise. The ever shifting nature of his social condition forced him to move with guile and speed through the hidden passageways of society, not to commit himself to any one position or to any one spot.'" (30)
"Though many early American writers did not reciprocate the feeling, Californios generally admired America and Americans. Even after it had become clear that the settlers were a threat to Mexican sovereignty, many Californio observers gave the Americans their due. in the 1840s, after the type and tenor of Anglo immigration had changed, Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, wrote: 'We find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee immigrants whose progress we cannot arrest. ... Whatever that astonishing people will next undertake I cannot say, but on whatever enterprise they embark they will be sure to be successful.' ... In 1840, Santa Barbaran Pablo de la Guerra told a friend that foreigners were 'about to overrun us, of which I am very glad, for the country needs immigration in order to make progress.'" (30-1)
"As in the 1930s and 1940s, large numbers of the U.S.-born children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants will come of age, and once again shift the cultural balance of Mexican America from immigrant to ethnic American culture." (254)
"Though many early American writers did not reciprocate the feeling, Californios generally admired America and Americans. Even after it had become clear that the settlers were a threat to Mexican sovereignty, many Californio observers gave the Americans their due. in the 1840s, after the type and tenor of Anglo immigration had changed, Pio Pico, the last Mexican governor of Alta California, wrote: 'We find ourselves threatened by hordes of Yankee immigrants whose progress we cannot arrest. ... Whatever that astonishing people will next undertake I cannot say, but on whatever enterprise they embark they will be sure to be successful.' ... In 1840, Santa Barbaran Pablo de la Guerra told a friend that foreigners were 'about to overrun us, of which I am very glad, for the country needs immigration in order to make progress.'" (30-1)
"As in the 1930s and 1940s, large numbers of the U.S.-born children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants will come of age, and once again shift the cultural balance of Mexican America from immigrant to ethnic American culture." (254)
October 31, 2016
This book has a fascinating premise. It traces intermarriage and racial mixing from the arrival of Cortez in 1519 to the present day. This is of course the story of the Mexican race, because they are a mixture of indigenous peoples and Spanish conquerors. It also traces how people felt about this intermingling. Rodriguez is amazingly complete in documenting every instance of historical intermixing, from the men who sued their brother for marrying an Indian because they were tainting their bloodline, to the rapes and concubinage that occurred in New Spain, to the percentage of intermixing that happened at each stage.
This is an academic book, and so it suffers from the defects of the genre: thin slices of thin slices of its subject, sometimes technical language, and too much detail. If this is your interest, though, this great detail will be riveting. It gave me a great perspective on the subject of racial intermixing, helping me to realize that the issues that we are currently going through have been issues that are historically persistent and nothing new. In fact, it helped me to realize that these issues of "limpieza de sangre" (that is, purity of blood) are the story of humanity, since every region in the world has undergone intermixing since the first man kissed the first woman. It is eternal.
This is an academic book, and so it suffers from the defects of the genre: thin slices of thin slices of its subject, sometimes technical language, and too much detail. If this is your interest, though, this great detail will be riveting. It gave me a great perspective on the subject of racial intermixing, helping me to realize that the issues that we are currently going through have been issues that are historically persistent and nothing new. In fact, it helped me to realize that these issues of "limpieza de sangre" (that is, purity of blood) are the story of humanity, since every region in the world has undergone intermixing since the first man kissed the first woman. It is eternal.
August 2, 2019
3.5 stars
February 6, 2023
Little history break!
December 13, 2009
So much information that wasn't taught to me in school. I am this book. I have every race and hue and color in my family. I never fit in any one race or class of people. I am a Mongrel, a mutt. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I used to complain in history class that all I was learning was about eurocavemen history and I got sent to the office and expelled and all kinds of stuff. So one day they came to me and said well you get your way... so they started teaching me about African history. African? I wanted history about me and my people. Well... sorry to say I never got it and so it's been a struggle to get any information. So this book was a good thing for me. The writing was clear and the history makes sense. (stop reading here if you don't want to hear a personal rant) Get ready America, the next bunch of years is going to find us in some very serious mixed up times. The Hispanic population is very conservative and religious. They listen and obey the directives of the church as long as it doesn't interfere with their backward ideals. I hope we can get this huge block of voters educated in time to keep us from swinging back to the dark days of Bush Cheney.
Yes, I am of Hispanic/1st nation (Apache)/Black/French and English decent.
Yes, I am of Hispanic/1st nation (Apache)/Black/French and English decent.
May 2, 2008
This book provides great historical background on a subject that is not very often written about, which is that of people of Mexican background in the United States and the part they played in American society. Rodriguez argues those of Mexican background cannot be easily defined as having set racial or ethnic characteristics because racial heritage varies so much within the Hispanic population and because the level of assimilation into American culture varies depending on economic class and the amount of time lived in the US.
However, as much as I liked the historical background, which spans all the way back to the Spanish conquistadores, I think the author took a little too long to get to the meat of the book, which is the part of the present-day situation of Mexican-Americans. It seemed like he really wanted to write more on the present-day situation, but had to end the book rather abruptly. He should have either written a longer book or written one book on the historical background of Mexican Americans and another book on the present-day situation of Mexican-Americans.
However, as much as I liked the historical background, which spans all the way back to the Spanish conquistadores, I think the author took a little too long to get to the meat of the book, which is the part of the present-day situation of Mexican-Americans. It seemed like he really wanted to write more on the present-day situation, but had to end the book rather abruptly. He should have either written a longer book or written one book on the historical background of Mexican Americans and another book on the present-day situation of Mexican-Americans.
March 11, 2010
This is an excellent history, but I think the subtitle about the "Future of Race in America" is a bit of a misnomer. The last fifth or sixth of the book contemplates the impact current and projected Mexican immigration will have on America's racialist binary, but the real meat is a finely rendered accounting of the development of Mexican racial identity from Cortes until the present, and also in Mexico's farthest colonial reaches (Alta California, Nuevo Mexico, Tejas, i.e., future Aztlanian provinces). Rodriguez's view of the Chicano idea seems fair, critical but not harsh.
Recommended.
Recommended.
January 6, 2009
Rodriguez gives a nice short introduction to the way racial categories have been utilized differently in Latin America as opposed to the "one-drop" rule in the United States that leads to a strictly black-white dynamic. He shows how Mexicans and Mexican Americans have never really fit into that dynamic and the twists and turns that that American legal system has had to go through to encompass them reveals the irrationality of the American racial caste system.
August 30, 2009
As someone of Mexican-American descent who thought I knew a lot about my heritage, this work opened me eyes. Sadly, it also confirmed some of what I had suspected as the origin of the many serious troubles facing Latinos in the US today, especially those of us whose roots go back a few hundred years. All educated Americans should read this book to consider themselves informed citizens and neighbors.
June 23, 2012
It was a very informational read and I feel that the author was generally unbiased in his writing, but I also feel that he could've discussed the implications or opened the floor to different possibilities to what the future could hold. It seemed like the book just simply ended, and I personally did not like that. Overall, though, I learned quite a bit.
January 14, 2008
Provides very interesting information, but the chronology is horrible! Causation is completely lost due to jumping around in time.
Read
June 30, 2008Wonderfully insightful book about the history of Mexicans and how their immigrant tale into the U.S.is a harbinger of the future of race. The obsolescence of racial categories is our future.
Currently reading
August 5, 2008Have read the preface, will get back to it when I have time.
March 26, 2012
This book provides some interesting insights on a largely misunderstood topic. Definitely broadened my worldview.
September 4, 2017
One of the best books I have ever read on the theme of race and ethnicity and how we apply these themes to the Latino culture. Beginning in the sixteenth century and ending in the 21st century we see the complexity of trying to put in a group of people in a box, and the political goals and consequences that accompany such an exercise.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews