Order Mestizos Come Home!
Mestizos Come Home!
Making and Claiming Mexican American Identity
By Robert Con Davis-Undiano
$29.95 HARDCOVER • 978-0-8061-5719-1 • 336 PAGES • 8 COLOR ILLUS. • UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
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In Mestizos Come Home! author Robert Con Davis-Undiano maps a new awareness of the United States as intrinsically connected to the broader context of the Americas. At once native and new to the American Southwest, Mexican Americans have “come home” in a profound sense: they have reasserted their right to claim that land and U.S. culture as their own. As Davis-Undiano embarks on a search for the meaning of mestizo identity, he analyzes such cultural artifacts as the casta (caste) paintings of eighteenth-century Mexico, the work of such modern-day artists and writers as John Valadez, Alma López, Luis A. Jiménez Jr., Rudolfo Anaya, and Tomás Rivera, and the community celebrations of Day of the Dead and Cinco de Mayo. A large-scale landmark account of Mexican American culture, Mestizos Come Home! shows that mestizos are essential to U.S. national culture. As an argument for social justice and a renewal of America’s democratic ideals, this book marks a historic cultural homecoming.
“Robert Con Davis-Undiano’s brilliant analysis and presentation of casta paintings and what they mean to the development of New World racism are of immense importance. Mestizos Come Home! is a clarion call, reminding us of the intransigent racism mestizos have suffered over the centuries. With great understanding Davis-Undiano calls on mestizos to take pride in their mestizaje.” – RUDOLFO ANAYA
“Mestizos Come Home! is a deeply researched, provocative, and compelling study of the ways Mexican Americans have struggled to belong to the place they come from, and to reclaim their heritage in the United States and throughout the Americas. Davis-Undiano provides us with a deep understanding of the cultural strategies and folk traditions that have sustained Mexican Americans for centuries. A must-read for those who wish to understand the future of the United States.” – NEIL FOLEY, author of Mexicans in the Making of America
