Martha Menchaca has begun an intellectual insurrection by challenging the pristine aboriginal origins of Mexican Americans as historically inaccurate. An anthropologist with broad competence as a historian, Menchaca revisits the process of racial formation in the northern part of Greater Mexico from the Spanish conquest to the present. She analyzes the colonial history and more recent reconfigurations of borderlands racial categories, focusing on the process of mestizaje between blacks, Indians, and Spaniards. This work establishes a dialogue between Chicano/a studies and the so-called borderlands school to discover the history of racialization in the region prior to the Mexican-American War (1846– 48) and the Treaty of Hidalgo in February 1848. Before 1848, communities along the borderlands had developed as dynamic multiracial societies, with undeniable influences from Indians, blacks, and whites. In the last two chapters, Menchaca adds an insightful examination of the racialization process in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War....
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