| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 218 words from this article are provided below; about 379 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race. By Laura E. Gómez. (New York: New York University Press, 2007. xii, 243 pp. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-8147-3174-1.)

In this provocative analysis, the sociologist and legal scholar Laura E. Gómez offers a compelling argument for the unique racial status of Mexican Americans, significant (and increasing) proportions of whom identify as nonwhite. Differentiating race, which "is assigned by others," from ethnicity, which is "chosen by members," Gómez revisits the history of New Mexico between 1846 and 1910 to prove that Mexican Americans' experience of colonization, limited citizenship, and elite co-optation left them in an intermediary social position (p. 2). Though they possessed legal rights that approached the level of white privilege, their nonwhite social standing offset those privileges. Complicating that identity further was a remnant of the Spanish racial system that assigned to Mexican Americans a role as a buffer between Euro-American settlers and Pueblo Indians. Because they had to "act like whites" to justify being above Indians, they became "agents in the reproduction of racial subordination" even as they were victims of it (p. 115). Such arguments illustrate the greatest value of this book: its insight into the formulation of white supremacy beyond slavery and the South, to include the West and the Mexican American experience.

. . .

There are about 379 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.