Mexico and Mexicans in the Making of the United States

Preface

Preface This volume emerged from a long history linking the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and Georgetown University. José Limón and I were graduate students in Austin in the early 1970s. José created an innovative intellectual trajectory linking literature, folklore, and Mexican American studies and was already recruited to a lead role building the Center for Mexican American Studies. I followed a traditional path to Mexican and Latin American history. We knew of each other just a bit, connected by his assistant and my comadre, Rosalinda Delgado. Our paths diverged for years while I slowly grasped the importance of integrating U.S. and Mexican history—and in the process discovered the salient importance of José’s work. Meanwhile, David Montejano, a sociologist, claimed leadership as the most innovative analyst of Mexicans in Texas history while teaching in the History Department in Austin. I left Texas for a nomadic career. At St. Olaf College I had the pleasure of overseeing Andrew Isenberg’s honors thesis—on indigenous peoples in Guatemala; it was a greater pleasure to invite him to join this project in recognition of his work on native peoples and the environment in the U.S. West. As I settled at Georgetown in the early 1990s, my work became more transnational, crossing scholarly borders to trek north from Mexico into the United States. The teachers who joined the six National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminars I led between 1990 and 2000 were a key stimulus to this project. They insisted that the histories of Mexico and the United States were inseparable—even as some NEH staffers resisted the notion. Then Jane McAuliffe became dean of Georgetown College. The Americas Initiative that sponsored this project was her idea, and she put x Preface funds where her idea led. The goal was to cross national, ethnic, and disciplinary boundaries in innovative ways. She offered me the opportunity to lead the Initiative; I knew I was too busy as History Department chair, but the promise was too important to set aside. This volume emerged from the Initiative’s first conference. Jane has moved on to lead Bryn Mawr College; her vision marks this volume and much more that lives at Georgetown. Dean Chet Gillis has kept the Initiative alive in the face of economic constraints, demonstrating his commitment to the challenge of hemispheric understanding. The faculty community that continues to meet in monthly seminars to discuss texts in progress, crossing traditional borders and mixing disciplines, contributed to this volume in many ways. Our continuing Americas conferences keep us all creative. From the beginning, the goal was a gathering of scholars to generate a volume. I had to invite José Limón and David Montejano—and Drew Isenberg, too.Then I asked myself who else had shaped my understanding in transforming ways and approached Ramón Gutiérrez, Shelley Streeby, and Devra Weber. Working with colleagues to recruit Katie BentonCohen to the Georgetown History Department introduced me to her work before it was published; we invited her to the conference and the volume before she got to the department. We are all illuminated by her youthful innovation. If I had an early idea, it was transformed in conversations among the participants and in learning from their texts. Who should publish our volume? The obvious answer was the distinguished History, Culture, and Society Series published by the University of Texas Press. I proposed, José Limón facilitated, and Theresa May and two anonymous readers welcomed us with energy. While our project developed at the intersection of Georgetown and UT, many have moved on: David had already left for Berkeley when we began; José has just opened a new chapter at Notre Dame; Jane left for Bryn Mawr after the conference but before the book that presents the first published fruit of her vision. Katie and I remain at Georgetown; Theresa holds strong as a creative force at UT Press. The Texas-Georgetown link that stimulated this volume seems diasporic—perhaps a fitting foundation for studies of the inseparable history of Mexico and the United States. Important assistance in making the Americas Initiative work has come from Kathleen Gallagher since the beginning. Stephen Levy produced the common bibliography and helped assemble the manuscript for publication . Bill Nelson made maps with skill and good cheer. This edited volume really is a group project. Mexico and Mexicans in the Making of the...