Indian Given: Racial Geographies across Mexico and the United States

by Marïa Josefina Saldaïa-Portillo

Overview

In Indian Given María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo addresses current racialized violence and resistance in Mexico and the United States with a genealogy that reaches back to the sixteenth century. Saldaña-Portillo formulates the central place of indigenous peoples in the construction of national spaces and racialized notions of citizenship, showing, for instance, how Chicanos/as in the U.S./Mexico borderlands might affirm or reject their indigenous background based on their location. In this and other ways, she demonstrates how the legacies of colonial Spain's and Britain's differing approaches to encountering indigenous peoples continue to shape perceptions of the natural, racial, and cultural landscapes of the United States and Mexico. Drawing on a mix of archival, historical, literary, and legal texts, Saldaña-Portillo shows how los indios/Indians provided the condition of possibility for the emergence of Mexico and the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822360148
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Series:	Latin America Otherwise
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University and the author of The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development, also published by Duke University Press.
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction. It Remains to Be Seen: Indians in the Landscape of America  1

1. Savages Welcomed: Imputations of Indigenous Humanity in Early Colonialisms  33

2. Affect in the Archive: Apostates, Profligates, Petty Thieves, and the Indians of the Spanish and U.S. Borderlands  66

3. Mapping Economies of Death: From Mexican Independence to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo  108

4. Adjudicating Exception: The Fate of the Indio Bárbaro in the U.S. Courts (1869–1954)  154

5. Losing It! Melancholic Incorporations in Aztlán  195

Conclusion. The Afterlives of the Indio Bárbaro  233

Notes  259

Bibliography  299

Index  319

What People are Saying About This

The World of Indigenous North America - Robert Warrior

"Indian Given is a transnational scholarly mural, offering a critical account of North America with both exacting specificity and stunning synthesis, all on one continuous canvas. María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo’s archival skills are formidable across centuries, languages, and geographies. Her archive includes not only Las Casas, La Malinche, and Geronimo, but also Javier Bardem, Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Osama bin Laden. As soon as I finished reading Indian Given, I wanted to start it again."

Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature - Sonia Saldívar-Hull

"Indian Given is an important interrogation of racial and knowledge production in the Americas and offers important analyses of how racial geographies figure in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. With Indian Given, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo gives us the most comprehensive study of indigenous Mexican and Mexican American identity formations to date."
 

Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature - Sonia Saldívar-Hull

"Indian Given is an important interrogation of racial and knowledge production in the Americas and offers important analyses of how racial geographies figure in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. With Indian Given, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo gives us the most comprehensive study of indigenous Mexican and Mexican American identity formations to date."
 

Editorial Reviews

Indian Given will be of great interest to scholars and university students who explore issues of Indigeneity in Mexico and the United States. Its interdisciplinary inquiry makes an important contribution to the field of Indigenous studies.

Native American and Indigenous Studies - Emilio del Valle Escalante

"Saldana-Portillo’s monograph makes critical contributions to the fields of indigenous studies, borderlands studies, American studies, Mexican studies, Chicano/a studies, gender studies, transnational studies, western legal studies, and Southwest studies—just to name a few. Indian Given truly has the potential to help set the agenda in multiple disciplines."

H-Net Reviews - John Gram

"Saldaña-Portillo illuminates the racial process in which indigenous people have been central to the continuous colonial and national space-making projects of Mexico and the United States."

Radical History Review - Jorge Ramirez

"Indian Given is a transnational scholarly mural, offering a critical account of North America with both exacting specificity and stunning synthesis, all on one continuous canvas. María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo’s archival skills are formidable across centuries, languages, and geographies. Her archive includes not only Las Casas, La Malinche, and Geronimo, but also Javier Bardem, Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Osama bin Laden. As soon as I finished reading Indian Given, I wanted to start it again."

The World of Indigenous North America - Robert Warrior

"An eclectic, informative, and entertaining work. . . . Saldaña-Portillo’s work will certainly be an eye-opener for anyone who picks it up."

American Historical Review - F. Todd Smith

Indian Given will be of great interest to scholars and university students who explore issues of Indigeneity in Mexico and the United States. Its interdisciplinary inquiry makes an important contribution to the field of Indigenous studies.

Native American and Indigenous Studies Association - Emilio del Valle Escalante

"Indian Given is an important interrogation of racial and knowledge production in the Americas and offers important analyses of how racial geographies figure in the U.S./Mexico borderlands. With Indian Given, María Josefina Saldaña-Portillo gives us the most comprehensive study of indigenous Mexican and Mexican American identity formations to date."
 

Sonia Saldívar-Hull