In thewake of the Mexican-American War, competing narratives of religious conquestand re-conquest were employed by Anglo American and ethnic Mexican Californiansto make sense of their place in North America. These “invented traditions” hada profound impact on North American religious and ethnic relations, serving tobring elements of Catholic history within the Protestant fold of the UnitedStates’ national history as well as playing an integral role in the emergenceof the early Chicano/a movement.
Many Protestant AngloAmericans understood their settlement in the far Southwest as following in thefootsteps of the colonial project begun by Catholic Spanish missionaries. Incontrast,Californios—Mexican-Americans and Chicana/os—stresseddeep connections to a pre-Columbian past over to their own Spanish heritage.Thus, as Anglo Americans fashioned themselves as the spiritual heirs to theSpanish frontier, many ethnic Mexicans came to see themselves as the spiritualheirs to a southwestern Aztec homeland.
“This book is U.S.-Mexico borderland scholarship at its best. […] While written for an academic audience, Lint Sagarena writes with poetic elegance that could dance with even the most casual reader. This book is a must-read for any regional studies on Southern California.” -
Review of Religious ResearchIntroduction
11. Conquest and Legacy
2. Building a Region
3. The Spanish Heritage
4. Making Aztlán
Conclusion
This book is for anyone who is fascinated by the layering of time, by the structuring of place, memory, and peoples in landscapes that are half fantasy in the storied terrain of Southern California. Lint Sagarena gives us a subtle investigation of how ethnicity and nationalism rely on material forms anchored in style and imagination. He shows how history is a tale of loss and l#Ç
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