The US-Mexican War (1846-1848): Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship

FAIN: HB-232187-16

Omar Santiago Valerio-Jimenez
University of Texas, San Antonio (San Antonio, TX 78249-1644)

The writing of a book on the legacy of memories about the Mexican-American War among successive generations.

The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-48) is known as the America’s “forgotten war” because few Americans know the causes or consequences of the conflict that transformed the U.S. into a continental power. Yet, the war is central to Mexicans’ collective memory because it created the first generation of Mexican Americans and influenced the identity of subsequent generations. My book project addresses this paradox by identifying Mexican Americans’ choice of remembered events, exploring how memories were transmitted, and analyzing their meaning. My project uses a transnational approach by examining the political and social uses of memories of war in Mexico and in the United States. It will contrast each nation’s official histories with Mexican Americans’ depictions to illuminate ways in which alternative histories challenged, modified, or reinforced official portrayals. The study contributes to Mexican American history, memory studies, and American cultural history.

Associated Products

Owning History: Mexican American Activists and the U.S.-Mexican War (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Owning History: Mexican American Activists and the U.S.-Mexican War
Abstract: The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-48) created the first generation of Mexican Americans when tens of thousands of residents in northern Mexico became U.S. citizens upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo. Although the war and its outcome is central in Mexican history, few Americans understand its importance. Valerio-Jiménez, who is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Texas at San Antonio, explores how Mexican Americans transmitted their memories of the war and how these memories have influenced Mexican American identity.
Author: Omar Valerio-Jimenez
Date: 05/05/16
Location: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center
Primary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLv4o4G0N-s
Primary URL Description: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center's YouTube channel

“Constructing Counter Narratives in Aztlán: The Brown Berets and Public History,” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “Constructing Counter Narratives in Aztlán: The Brown Berets and Public History,”
Author: Omar Valerio-Jiménez
Abstract: This paper will examine the ways that the Brown Berets remembered the U.S.-Mexico War to advance their political agendas in the 1970s. These Chicana/o civil rights activists invoked the nineteenth-century conflict to raise awareness of Mexican Americans’ poverty and disenfranchisement in the twentieth century. In a 1971 march throughout the U.S. Southwest, the Brown Berets created alternative monuments to Mexican Americans who had fought on Mexico’s behalf during the U.S.-Mexico War and also attempted to raise the Mexican flag at war landmarks as a reminder of Mexico’s former claim to the land. This activism, I argue, illustrates activists’ strategic use of war memories and the links between social and political issues. Each time activists recalled the war in their pamphlets, speeches, and/or media interviews, they reminded the nation of the long-term social consequences of the U.S.-Mexico War, the unfulfilled promises of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and the justifications for civil rights activism. Moreover, by recalling the war and the treaty’s promises in their campaigns, activists reinforced and modified their communities’ collective memories, thus transmitting war memories across several generations.
Date: 11/04/2017
Primary URL: https://unomaha.app.box.com/v/2001WHA
Primary URL Description: Archived conference for the 2017 meeting of the Western History Association in San Diego, CA.
Conference Name: Western History Association

“La Caravana de la Reconquista: The Brown Berets Contest Memories of Conquest” (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “La Caravana de la Reconquista: The Brown Berets Contest Memories of Conquest”
Author: Omar Valerio-Jiménez
Abstract: This paper will examine the multiple ways the Brown Berets contested memories of conquest during their 1971 march throughout the U.S. Southwest. In the course of their “Caravana de la Reconquista,” the Berets collected, interpreted, and promoted collective war memories. They visited various sites in the U.S. Southwest with ties to the U.S.-Mexico War, and invoked collective memories of the war to contest the nation’s official history of the conflict. The Berets’ symbolic “reconquest” of the region relied on reminding the region’s residents of the tragic consequences of the U.S. conquest, challenging the “conquered” mentality among some Mexican Americans, and asserting Chicanos’ claim to the land and to U.S. citizenship. These Chicana/o civil rights activists “remembered” the nineteenth-century conflict to raise awareness of Mexican Americans’ contemporary poverty and disenfranchisement in the twentieth century. By linking the long-term consequences of the U.S.-Mexico War to the continued subordination of Mexican Americans, the Berets strategically used war memories to advance their political agenda. They highlighted Chicanos’ continued subordination and its origins in the U.S.-Mexico War, detailed problems facing the Chicano community, and challenged official public memories of the nation’s westward expansion. At various sites along their expedition, the Brown Berets also created alternative monuments to Mexican Americans who had fought on Mexico’s behalf during the U.S.-Mexico War or who had fought to defend the Mexican community against European American attacks. Moreover, by recalling the war and the treaty’s promises in their campaigns and press releases, activists reinforced and modified their communities’ collective memories, thus transmitting war memories across several generations. This presentation is based on oral history interviews, memoirs, newspapers, and published scholarship.
Date: 02/23/2018
Primary URL: http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2016/016472/sal-castro-memorial-conference
Primary URL Description: The Current online publication for UC Santa Barbara
Conference Name: Sal Castro Memorial Conference at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Remembering Conquest Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship (Book)
Title: Remembering Conquest Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship
Author: Omar Santiago Valerio-Jimenez
Abstract: "This book analyzes the ways collective memories of the US-Mexico War have shaped Mexican Americans' civil rights struggles over several generations. As the first Latinx people incorporated into the nation, Mexican Americans were offered US citizenship by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war. Because the 1790 Naturalization Act declared whites solely eligible for citizenship, the treaty pronounced Mexican Americans to be legally white. While their incorporation as citizens appeared as progress towards racial justice and the electorate's diversification, their second-class citizenship demonstrated a retrenchment in racial progress. Over several generations, civil rights activists summoned conquest memories to link Mexican Americans' poverty, electoral disenfranchisement, low educational attainment, and health disparities to structural and institutional inequalities resulting from racial retrenchments. Activists also recalled the treaty's citizenship guarantees to push for property rights, protection from vigilante attacks, and educational reform." (From UNC Press site)
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469675626/remembering-conquest/
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Type: Single author monograph

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