The Contested Homeland: A Chicano History of New Mexico

Abstract

The Contested Homeland, an anthology of twelve original essays on New Mexican history, is reputedly from the Chicano perspective. The essays are divided into two parts— the first on nineteenth-century New Mexico, and the second on the twentieth century. They generally ignore the colonial period and concentrate on the period after 1848. In each part an introductory essay by the editors, David R. Maciel and Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, ties the selections together. They give the reader a good geographic and historical overview of the “the contested homeland” and of the underlying theme of resistance by New Mexicans to being American and, may I add, to being Mexican. As in all anthologies, some of the selections are better than others. Martín González de la Vara's “The Return to Mexico: The Relocation of New Mexican Families to Chihuahua and the Confirmation of a Frontier Region, 1848– 1854,” reflects the excellent research emanating from Ciudad Juárez, where a collective of Mexican historians are doing groundbreaking work. De la Vara's essay is based on archival material, and it tells about the little-advertised work of the Mexican Boundary Commission after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the relocation of Mexican families to Chihuahua, some under the auspices of the commission and others on their own. The author does an excellent job in piecing this story together, laying out the barriers to the repatriation. It is followed by Anselmo Arrellano's chapter on “Las Gorras Blancas,” which covers old ground but covers it with grace to add new insight regarding New Mexican resistance to land grabbing.

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