Colonial Appropriations

FAIN: HB-50100-11

Ethan Bumas
New Jersey City University (Jersey City, NJ 07305-1596)

My interdisciplinary book studies colonial Hispanic-Anglo relations, a conflict that persists in the political and cultural antagonisms of our hemisphere. It combines literature, historiography, and art history to promote a pan-American understanding of the origins of the idea and practice of America by uncovering the legacy of Spanish influence shared with Latin America. Long before the term American gained common usage, British politics defined colonial identity as not being Spanish. Primarily because of language differences, the teaching of American literature, in course selections and literary anthologies and histories, while allowing for the borders determined by the Mexican War, replicate the British colonial exclusion of the Spanish influence in our understanding of what being American is.