Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America [Hardcover]

Gregory Rodriguez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 23, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Despite its title, this volume from L.A. Times columnist Rodriguez is a thorough and accessible history of Mexico that emphasizes the legacy of mestizaje, mixed races, among Mexico's inhabitants. Beginning with Cortes' arrival in 1519, an elaborate system of racial classification was put into place to keep separate Spanish and native peoples. The failure of this system, Rodriguez argues, allowed for a more progressive and open-minded approach to race in Mexico compared with, for example, the U.S.: "In colonial New Mexico, mestizaje was the rule rather than the exception." Black/white racial lines were nonexistent, as African natives merged effortlessly into Mexican society (which abolished slavery nearly 40 years before the States). Other developments include the Mexican-American War and subsequent insurgencies in the huge swath of Mexican land ceded to the U.S.; the Mexican revolution and the immigration wave it inspired; the backlash against Mexican-Americans during the depression years; and the Chicano movement of the 1960s and '70s. There's more at stake in Rodriguez's text than the latest immigration hullabaloo (he doesn't get around to addressing the past 30 years until the last chapter); aside from illuminating a complicated history and deeply contextualizing the present debate, the author takes on the concept of racial classification itself, calling for a change in attitude that more closely reflects the Mexican unifying idea of mestizaje, that we are all, to some extent, racially mixed "mongrels."
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Review

"In the midst of a narrow, polemical debate on immigration, Gregory Rodriguez has written a generous, sweeping, prodigiously researched, and judicious history of Mexican Americans that helps us understand their long-term influence on American society. Smart, fun, and eminently readable, Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds explores five centuries of cultural collisions and convergences, and dares us to imagine a new way of thinking about the future of America."
--Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and former United States ambassador to the United Nations

"Rodriguez has pulled off not one but two stunning coups--a thoroughly original history and a penetrating commentary on what race means and will mean in our era and beyond. From 1519 to the front page of today's newspaper, from the Virgin of Guadalupe to the National Council of La Raza--the sweep alone is breathtaking. But every chapter also drills deep, and they build to an important new argument about the future of the American melting pot. By turns learned, fascinating, deeply felt (this is no academic history), completely contemporary, and, in its picture of where we're heading, as persuasive as it is provocative. A tour de force."
--Tamar Jacoby, author of Someone Else's House: America's Unfinished Struggle for Integration

"Passionately argued, thoroughly researched... Draws a far more complex portrait of Mexican Americans and Mexicans in America than is found in our media. Rodriguez's book provides a welcome interjection of sanity and complexity into a debate that so far has been largely characterized by ignorance, ideology, and hysteria."
--Eric Alterman, author of When Presidents Lie: A History of the Official Deception and Its Consequences

"Trailblazing... Rodriguez examines the complex racial and ethnic heritage of Mexican Americans with a sweeping historical insight that demolishes widespread prevalent myths... A vital contribution to understanding the role of Mexican Americans in U.S. society."
--Lou Cannon, author of President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime

"An indispensable guide to America's future--and an optimistic one, too."
--Adrian Woolridge, co-author of The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (October 23, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375421580
• ISBN-13: 978-0375421587
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #900,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars At long last--a sane book, November 27, 2007

By 

Ido Tavory "bookworm" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Hardcover)

Rodriguez challenges conventional wisdom about race relations in the USA, and what we can expect in the future. I found it to be one of the few sane books on the topic, which doesn't treat race or racism as constant and immutable, but shows the dynamics in which it is done on the ground. Also, as someone who reads quite a bit of boring academic texts on the subject, I found his writing really refreshing, both accessible and challenging at the same time.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History at its Best., November 27, 2007

By 

Claudia E. Vazquez "Cloudy" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Hardcover)

Gregory Rodriguez has written a remarkable, enjoyable, and fascinating book that traces 500 years of Mexican and Mexican American history. Clearly written, fair-minded, and full of amazing details, if you only read one book about the Mexican experience in the United States it should be this one. Rodriguez is a columnist at the Los Angeles Times who tackles a variety of issues concerning contemporary migration and integration. This book digs deep into the Mexican past to try to give us a glimpse of the American future. Without taking a side in today's immigration debate--this is no polemic--Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds gives us much needed historical context and goes a long way in telling us who Mexicans are and how they will influence U.S. society. This book is really history at its best--as you're reading it, you not only learn about the past, but about the present, and the future.

23 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much needed context on an important issue, November 16, 2007

By 

Philippe Duhart (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America (Hardcover)

In this book, Gregory Rodriguez does what any good scholar, journalist, or political commentator ought to focus his or her efforts on: pointing out the obvious reality lying underneath the veneer of rhetoric, ravings, and spurious ideological claims. Given the well-worn manufactured hysteria and poor scholarship surrounding Latino immigration--and its consequent political and cultural ramifications--Mongrels. Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds is as much a call for taking a deep breath as it is a concise argument concerning the impact Latinos will have on American notions of notions of race.

I'd like to emphasize two strengths of Rodriguez's work. First, he is making what is essentially an argument based on a single--though incredibly complex--historical process, namely mestizaje. Rather than using the historical record as a convenient backdrop or filler for his book, the historical record is the argument. Weaving such a narrative is not seemingly difficult. Constructing an overarching argument from 400 years of history is, however, no easy task. If indeed, as he argues, Mexican-Americans are contributing significantly--if not singlehandedly--to the destabilization of "race" in the 21st century U.S. , this process will not be the result of some grandiose ideological project, but rather a consequence of innumerable and often contradictory social practices. Rather than merely claiming such an outcome has historical precedence, Rodriguez's narrative serves to demonstrate that what is occurring and will occur over the subsequent decades is tied directly to an historical process that began effectively in 1492.

Of course, Rodriguez is sensitive to the nuances and complexities of the historical record, and his analysis never shies from the dark and exploitative side of mestizaje. Rather, by highlighting these contradictions and inconsistencies, his argument is bolstered. By using the historical in this manner, his argument is bolstered. The burden is no placed on the shoulders of both reactionary nativists and proponents of Chicanismo to demonstrate to the rest of us how mestizaje--a complex, contradictory process embedded in numerous social formations and economic arrangements--will not continue in yet another venue, i.e. the United States.

This is precisely the second strength of Rodriguez's book: his taking to task of the poor claims and intellectually lazy rhetoric of both left and right concerning the place of Latinos in American society. The right insists on the destructive consequences Mexican and, more generally, Latino immigration will have on American culture. Rodriguez, by emphasizing the sociological trends playing out over the last 60 years, casts doubts on the impending failure of Latino assimilation. Mexican-Americans, he argues, are assimilating. But, it is the way that they're assimilating, or rather their emerging influence on American culture and ideological idioms that is different. Much as the Catholic and Jewish immigrants of the 19th century modified the American imaginary of the 20th as a result of their immigration, so too will the Mexican immigrant. Rather than contributing to the alarmism surrounding this prospect, Rodriguez argues that the American nation will persevere much as it has in the past. Indeed, we will benefit largely from this assimilation as it will undermine our antiquated and ultimately detrimental conceptions of race and identity.

In this sense, Rodriguez may seem to be forwarding a celebratory set of claims regarding multiculturalism. He is most certainly not doing such a thing. Rather, he eschews the rhetoric of multiculturalism by claiming that Mexican-Americans will become--and for many remain--fully American. Again, it is the meaning of "being American" which will alter. Rather than envisioning a pluralistic future of cultural fragmentation and social segmentation, Rodriguez makes the point that it is the "sameness" of American identity which will be different. In this regard, he's clearly distinguishing himself from the proponents of Chicanismo, who all too often refer to the tropes and themes of Americans experience will race, rather than immigration. Assimilation and mestizaje will continue, much as they have in the past, to reshape society and culture. As a result, the very concept of "race"--as much as the terms of this particular discourse--will be radically altered, making much of the current claims and tropes of Latino racial separateness incoherent and unreflective of the social reality in which Americans of all ethnic backgrounds live.

In addition to all this, Mongrels. Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds, is a good read, itself a monumental accomplishment for such an important argument.