Latinos are now the largest so-called minority group in the United States—the result of a growth trend that began in the mid-twentieth century—and the influence of Latin cultures on American life is reflected in everything from politics to education to mass cultural forms such as music and television. Yet very few volumes have attempted to analyze or provide a context for this dramatic historical development. The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States Since 1960 is among the few comprehensive histories of Latinos in America. This collaborative, interdisciplinary volume provides not only cutting-edge interpretations of recent Latino history, including essays on the six major immigrant groups (Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and South Americans), but also insight into the major areas of contention and debate that characterize Latino scholarship in the early twenty-first century. This much-needed book offers a broad overview of this era of explosive demographic and cultural change by exploring the recent histories of all the major national and regional Latino subpopulations and reflecting on what these historical trends might mean for the future of both the United States and the other increasingly connected nations of the Western Hemisphere. While at one point it may have been considered feasible to explore the histories of national populations in isolation from one another, all of the contributors to this volume highlight the deep transnational ties and interconnections that bind different peoples across national and regional lines. Thus, each chapter on Latino national subpopulations explores the ambiguous and shifting boundaries that so loosely define them both in the United States and in their countries of origin. A multinational perspective on important political and cultural themes—such as Latino gender systems, religion, politics, expressive and artistic cultures, and interactions with the law—helps shape a realistic interpretation of the Latino experience in the United States.

Offers a comprehensive historical overview of the "Latinization" of the United States that has occurred over the past four decades. Brings together the views of some of the foremost scholarly interpreters of the recent history of Latinos in the United States.

The Columbia History of Latinos in the United States Since 1960 provides cutting-edge interpretations of recent Latino history, including essays on the six major immigrant groups (Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and South Americans) and insight into areas of important historical debate. Contributors explore the recent histories of all the major national and regional Latino subpopulations and reflect on what these historical trends might mean for the future of both the United States and the other nations of the Western Hemisphere. While at one point the histories of national populations might have been explored in isolation from one another, all of the contributors to this volume highlight the deep transnational ties and interconnections that bind different peoples across national and regional lines. Each chapter on Latino national subpopulations considers the ambiguous and shifting boundaries that so loosely define them both in the United States and in their countries of origin. This multinational perspective informs a realistic interpretation of the Latino experience in the United States and makes this text a singularly important resource.

The Latina/o population in the United States has become the largest minority group in the nation. Latinas/os are a mosaic of people, representing different nationalities and religions as well as different levels of education and income. This edited volume uses a multidisciplinary approach to document how Latinas and Latinos have changed and continue to change the face of America. It also includes critical methodological and theoretical information related to the study of the Latino/a population in the United States.

This book examines the transformations in the demographic, social, and economic structures of Latino-Americans in the United States between 1980 and 2005.

The first text of its kind to trace the combined history of Latino groups in the United States from 1500 to the present day. Latinos have lived in North America for over 400 years, arriving decades before the Pilgrims and other English settlers. Yet for many outside of Latino ethnic groups, little is known about the cultures that comprise the Latino community ... surprising considering their increasing presence in the U.S. population-over 50 million individuals at the latest census. This book explores the heritage and history of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, and Central and South Americans. Unlike similar history surveys on these communities, this book places the 500 years of Latino history into a single narrative. Each chapter discusses the collective group within a particular time period-moving chronologically from 1500 to the present-revealing the shared experiences of community building and discrimination in the United States, the central role of Latinas and Latinos in their communities, and the diversity that exists within the communities themselves.

This Latino history textbook is an outstanding reference source that covers many different Latino groups within a single comprehensive narrative. Latinos make up a vibrant, expanding, and extremely diverse population with a history of being in the Americas that dates back to the early 16th century. Today, Latinos represent the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, yet the history of Latinos is largely unknown to the wider nation. This book tells the larger "story" of Latinos in the United States and describes how they represent a breadth of ethnicities, addressing not only those in very large numbers from countries such as Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and El Salvador, but also Latino people from Peru, Argentina, Venezuela, Panama, and Costa Rica, as well as indigenous Oaxacans and Mixtecos, among others. Organized chronologically, the book's coverage begins with the arrival of the Spanish in the Americas around 1500 and stretches to the present. Each chapter discusses a particular time period and addresses multiple Latino groups in the United States together in the same narrative. The text is supplemented with interesting sidebars that spotlight topics such as Latino sports figures, authentic recipes, and Latino actors and pop stars. These sidebars help to engage readers and assist them in better understanding the wide range of "the Latino American experience" in the modern context.

“A rich and moving chronicle for our very present.” —Julio Ortega, New York Times Book Review The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America’s Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater. This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores who planted Spain’s first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Southwest. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain’s expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies, and charting the Pacific coast. During the nineteenth century Anglo-America expands west under the banner of “Manifest Destiny” and consolidates control through war with Mexico. In the Hispanic resurgence that follows, it is the peoples of Latin America who overspread the continent, from the Hispanic heartland in the West to major cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston. The United States clearly has a Hispanic present and future. And here is its Hispanic past, presented with characteristic insight and wit by one of our greatest historians.

Over the course of the twentieth century, Catholics, who make up a quarter of the population of the United States, made significant contributions to American culture, politics, and society. They built powerful political machines in Chicago, Boston, and New York; led influential labor unions; created the largest private school system in the nation; and established a vast network of hospitals, orphanages, and charitable organizations. Yet in both scholarly and popular works of history, the distinctive presence and agency of Catholics as Catholics is almost entirely absent. In this book, R. Scott Appleby and Kathleen Sprows Cummings bring together American historians of race, politics, social theory, labor, and gender to address this lacuna, detailing in cogent and wide-ranging essays how Catholics negotiated gender relations, raised children, thought about war and peace, navigated the workplace and the marketplace, and imagined their place in the national myth of origins and ends. A long overdue corrective, Catholics in the American Century restores Catholicism to its rightful place in the American story.

America today is witnessing the largest and most sustained wave of immigrants its borders have ever seen. Although factors like the Great Depression, World War II, and quota restrictions had slowed the massive influx of Europeans from the early part of the 20th century, policies like the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act have relaxed quotas and opened America's doors to hundreds of thousands of immigrants a year, from both Eastern and Western hemispheres, to reach a height of over 9 million immigrants in the 1990s. Today, immigrants and policy-makers alike grapple with issues regarding employment, education, refugee status, and family reunification; as well as illegal immigrants—many from Mexico, whose legal immigration alone accounts for more than 20% of immigrants in the US. Despite this, this comprehensive reference source allows a glimpse of the same motivating factors that drove earlier immigrants through Ellis Island's gates—the promise of economic opportunity and the hope of a better life. Over 70 A-Z entries address topical and timely aspects of modern US immigration, including: ; bilingual education ; domestic work ; employer sanctions ; gangs ; gender ; homeland security ; migrant education ; posttraumatic stress disorder ; stereotypes