Telling Identities: The Californio Testimonios

by Kosaura Sanchez and Rosaura Sánchez

Book Overview

The Californios were the original Spanish-speaking settlers of Alta California. By the 1870s they had become a conquered and dominated population as a result of the westward expansion of the United States. In that same decade the Californios were approached by agents of Hubert Howe Bancroft, a wealthy San Francisco book dealer and publisher, asking them to narrate recollections of their past in Alta California as part of a research...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 081662559X
• ISBN13: 9780816625598
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Better than I thought in spite of author's bias

Getting past the Marxism, I found a book capable of giving the reader a good understanding of the Californios and how they are situated in the macro history of California and the relations between the United States and Mexico. The chapters are divided into the issue of the missions, the liberalism after Mexico's independence wars (after 1822), situating the relationships of all the participants in the pre-American (estadounidense type) period, an interesting and (I thought) a very good chapter on gender issues, the "invasion" period and, finally, ethnicity. A subsection (page 255) in the "invasion" chapter called The Rape of California was mistitled. A comparison to The Rape of Nanking or to a woman that has really been raped makes the application a sad reflection of the bias of the author. Also, the "invasion" language seems universal in Mexican history, as it is used also in the "Spanish invasion" of Mexico as noted, for example, in the history written next to the Tule tree in Oaxaca, Mexico. The inclination to bring forth strong language to denote a situation as seen from the underdog is a common proclivity that the author does not fail to buy into here. But, the issue should not cloud or color the reader's understanding of what happened during the period from 1769 to 1846. The author has put together the right construction to give the reader a clear picture of who, what and where in Californio history.The Marxism issue is a serious one for the reader if taken from the author's viewpoint solely. Actually, though, I found it to fit fairly well into the pre-capitalist, semifeudal society, which Sanchez calls the 75 year period. Prior to this book, I read Jerry Muller's The Mind And The Market, which helped greatly to situate Marxist thought in history. It also helped to keep me from having a bias against Marxist language and thinking in understanding the Californios. Without Muller's book, my libertarian mind would have been greatly molested by Sanchez's Marxist language and remarks which would have distracted me from the real value of the book, viz., understanding the Californios.One last remark on the ethnicity issue. Sanchez's references to how the Californios identified themselves in relation to others at different periods (right through the 1870s) makes clear that people identify themselves in different ways and at different times depending on what the current issues are. In other words, the language used in identity is subjective and relative. Her references to this history as being as source of understanding to Chicanos for the apparent racism of today is weak and a stretch in my mind. There are many individual issues and statistics I would love to debate, but my little review here is not the right place and each reader will probably want to do the same when they read the book. I would have given it 5 stars but for the Marxist issue and that so much was referenced from the few major Californio players where a broader stat