Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America (review)

Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. By Juan Gonzalez. New York: Viking, 2000; pp. vii + 346. $27.95.

Latinos account for the largest wave of immigration this country has ever seen, surpassing the 14.4 million Europeans arriving in the United States from 1901 to 1920, and accounting for more than 50 percent of immigration to the United States since 1960. Growing over seven times as fast as the rest of the nation during the 1980s, Latinos are expected to become the largest minority group in the country by the year 2010. Juan Gonzalez's Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America is a welcome contribution that not only helps us to contextualize these changes in our culture, but provides a wealth of information regarding Latino history for its readers.

Gonzalez, a columnist with New York's Daily News, and co-founder of the late 1960s Puerto Rican radical party The Young Lords, aims to provide a better contextualized history of the changes surrounding this massive demographic shift taking place in the United States. Disdainful of what he calls the "safari approach" of other Latino histories, "geared strictly to an Anglo audience, with the author as guide and interpreter to the natives to be encountered along the way," Gonzalez sets out to "trace the seamless bond between Anglo dominance of Latin America . . . and the modern flood of the region's people to the United States" (xviii). The thesis of Harvest of Empire is simple and straightforward: the deluge of immigration from Latin America to these shores and the massive demographic shift that Gonzalez calls the "Latinization of the United States" are a direct result of the economic and territorial expansionist history of the United States.

Gonzales develops his thesis by asserting that Latin American immigration and Latino presence in the United States are markedly different from European immigration history to this country in at least three main ways: (1) Latino immigration is closely tied to the growth and needs of the U.S. empire; (2) race and language attitudes in this country have had the effect of moving Latin Americans not from immigrant to mainstream status, but rather from an immigrant to a linguistic/racial caste status; and (3) the greatest number of Latin Americans have arrived when the United States is already the dominant world power--hence the economic situation that allowed European immigrants to rise into the middle class is no longer available. The book is divided into three main sections titled "Roots," "Branches," and "Harvest." The first section, "Roots," provides a brief but very informative history of the United States/Latin American relationship from 1500 to 1950. The second section, "Branches," delineates the history of the six major Latino groups in the United States: Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and Colombians and Panamanians. The final section, "Harvest," focuses on Latinos today and treats issues of politics, culture, language, and immigration. In addition, as would be expected, this section provides the clincher to the argument that in regard to its so-called "Latinization," the United States is harvesting what it has sown.

The book ends with a short section of recommendations that provide ample food for thought for all concerned with public policy regarding immigration, language, education, and labor and trade laws. In this epilogue Gonzalez distills his argument into six recommendations that he considers essential for bringing about "qualitative progress" in dealing with this demographic shift. The book also contains an extensive bibliography, notes, a brief glossary of Spanish usage, and an index.

Harvest of Empire is a richly researched book containing a wealth of information that will prove useful for those who teach or are interested in issues of civil rights, public policy, rhetoric, or history. The book is indeed a history of Latinos in America, but it is also a history of the United States, albeit one with which many remain largely unacquainted. Ostensibly...