Ed/Angie:

Whatever the political status of the American Southwest was 
throughout the 1700s and early 1800s, it was if not indigenous in 
identity, certainly Mexican.  Most of the settlers in the area were 
not Spaniards, as a lot of Anglo revisionist historians like to 
purport by glorifying the missions, etc., but Mexicans... Tlaxacaltec 
colonizers in New Mexico, immigrants from Sonora, Chihuahua, 
Aguascalientes, etc... The original founding families of Culver City, 
California, for example were the Talamantes and Avila from 
Aguascalientes... probably related to some people in the group.

The following book is very well researched and provides a whole new 
insight into the attempted "de-Mexicanization" of Los Angeles.  A 
very good read.

Whitewashed Adobe : The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its 
Mexican Past
by William Deverell

Review:

Chronicling the rise of Los Angeles through shifting ideas of race 
and ethnicity, William Deverell offers a unique perspective on how 
the city grew and changed. Whitewashed Adobe considers six different 
developments in the history of the city--including the cementing of 
the Los Angeles River, the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1924, and 
the evolution of America's largest brickyard in the 1920s. In an 
absorbing narrative supported by a number of previously unpublished 
period photographs, Deverell shows how a city that was once part of 
Mexico itself came of age through appropriating--and even 
obliterating--the region's connections to Mexican places and people. 
Deverell portrays Los Angeles during the 1850s as a city seething 
with racial enmity due to the recent war with Mexico. He explains 
how, within a generation, the city's business interests, looking for 
a commercially viable way to establish urban identity, borrowed 
Mexican cultural traditions and put on a carnival called La Fiesta de 
Los Angeles. He analyzes the subtle ways in which ethnicity came to 
bear on efforts to corral the unpredictable Los Angeles River and 
shows how the resident Mexican population was put to work fashioning 
the modern metropolis. He discusses how Los Angeles responded to the 
nation's last major outbreak of bubonic plague and concludes by 
considering the Mission Play, a famed drama tied to regional 
assumptions about history, progress, and ethnicity. Taking all of 
these elements into consideration, Whitewashed Adobe uncovers an 
urban identity--and the power structure that fostered it--with far-
reaching implications for contemporary Los Angeles.




--- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "aajay1073" <aajay1073@y...> wrote:
>
> Ed,
> 
> Sorry...I have a tendecy to simplfy things and generalize...  I 
fully 
> understand what you mean.
> 
> Thanks,
> Angie
> 
> --- In ranchos@yahoogroups.com, "Edward Serros" <ed@s...> wrote:
> >
> > Angie,
> > 
> > As a point of clarification, the independent country of Mexico 
> owned much of the 
> > Southwest for only a few decades (1810/1820 time frame to ~1848). 
> Spain owned the 
> > Southwest for centuries. The only reason I bring this up is that 
I 
> hear the statement that 
> > Mexico owned California all the time and I am not sure people 
> remember the dates well or 
> > fully understand the entities involved.
> > 
> > 
> > Ed
> >
>