Straight Talk on Mexican-American Identity – Gregory Rodriquez’s new book “Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America”

“The subtitle of Gregory Rodriquez’s new book—Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America—reflects both the work’s strengths and weaknesses. As an analysis of the history of Mexican immigration to the United States from the 19th Century through the 1990’s, the book may be unsurpassed in its clarity and insights. But as an account of the future of racial identity in the United States, the work falls short by curiously ignoring the dramatic developments around Mexican-American identity that have occurred since 2000. The rise of the immigrants’ rights movement, and the resulting backlash, are not discussed in the book. These developments impact Rodriguez’s claim that Latinos are more impacted by class than racial concerns, and that the immigration issue is “losing its ethnic overtones.” But Rodriquez’s assertion that Latinos are not a monolith, and that Mexican-Americans are redefining racial identity in the United States while favoring assimilation far more than their advocates and opponents suggest, are but a few of the critical points that make Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans and Vagabonds a thought-provoking read.”*

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