HOW DO YOU SAY "HONEY" IN MEXAMERICA?

Myths, Misdeeds, and Misunderstandings: The Roots of Conflict in U.S.- Mexican Relations. Edited by Jaime E. Rodriguez and Kathyrn Vincent. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1997. iii + 278 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $45.00.

Common Border, Uncommon Paths: Race, Culture, and National Identity in U.S.-Mexican Relations. Edited by Jaime E. Rodriguez and Kathyrn Vincent. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1997. x + 188 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, and index. $45.00.

The war with Mexico hardly ended with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalago 150 years ago when Mexico lost approximately half of its territory to the United States. Since then historians, journalists, intellectuals, politicians, and pundits on both sides of the international border have sought to portray the other side as the villain in the creation and perpetuation of racial myths, political misdeeds, and cultural misunderstandings. The historiographical hostilities between Mexico and the United States show some signs of abatement as scholars move beyond the nationalist formulations of the past that view United States–Mexican relations in bi-polar terms: Anglo Protestant versus Mexican Catholic; Mexican mestizaje (race-mixing) versus United States racial hierarchies; and Anglo aggression versus Mexican weakness. While these and other dyads have characterized the various polarities of United States–Mexican relations, more recent scholarship on "the borderlands" and "MexAmerica" recognizes the emergence of a cultural, political, and ethnoracially mixed domain that transcends bi-national analyses. Increasingly scholars have adopted transnational and transcultural models that recognize the emergence of cultures "betwixt and between" Mexico and the United States. These scholars focus on phenomenona not bounded by borders: cholismo and youth culture in Los Angeles, the Mexicanization of Americanization in Mexico and the United States, and the evolution of MexAmerica from a sedentary to a migratory culture, to name but a few. But all of the essays deal with the stubborn issues of race, nationalism, and culture as they are inflected by modernist and postmodern sensibilities.