This Land Was Mexican Once: Histories of Resistance from Northern California

Abstract

This Land Was Mexican Once is a well-thought-out and carefully organized book that provides historical background on Northern California. It explores important questions that seek to shine light on the ways that social systems were established throughout the region and normalized through the use of history. Author Linda Heidenreich attempts to destabilize white supremacist narratives by using a wealth of primary sources to present an account of the Napa Valley as it was experienced by nonwhites since the beginning of the nineteenth century. She makes use of Prasenjit Duara’s notion of “bifurcated history,” which is “to write a history that recovers counter memories while demonstrating ways in which the past was transmitted to the present” (p. 4), and utilizes testimonios, including those dictated to Enrique Cerruti by Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, Salvador Vallejo, and Rosalia Vallejo de Leese; census records; and birth and death certificates to map out dispersed histories coexisting in time. She then turns to the dominant narrative that was used to cover and subordinate many of those histories to map out how such histories became dominant.This Land Was Mexican Once is organized into chapters interspersed with sections comprised of primary source materials critical to understanding the sociopolitical climate of the time. It begins by mapping precolonial histories, specifically those of Wappo-speaking peoples and other California Indian groups, and concludes by examining immigration and life among racialized minorities in post-1848 Napa. Heidenreich describes the impact that the missionaries, the Spanish, the Mexicans, and finally the Americans had on the Wappo- and Patwin-speaking peoples. This book has a particular focus on Spanish colonial and Mexican periods to demonstrate the complex and class-stratified societies of the time. It also presents history as it was experienced by Chinese and African Americans in the area to further illustrate racial tensions within the complex class-based power dynamics that developed within the regions now known as Sonoma, Napa, and Solano Counties. In particular, chapter 6 examines immigration and life among racialized minorities in post-1848 Napa and shows how African American, Chinese immigrant, and Chicana/o communities were pushed to segregated areas of Napa. Today in this same region, US citizens and residents of color and their white allies continue to “do battle on an uneven playing field” (p. 165). Although the author asked very important questions and sought to analyze “‘how things got to be so messed up’ at both the local and national level” (p. 1), her analysis of African Americans was under developed. The African American presence in Napa’s neighboring city Vallejo is extremely prominent. Thus, further analysis of this community is warranted if a holistic account of Napa’s history is to be presented.In sum, This Land Was Mexican Once is an important book that demonstrates the role of history in constructing dominant discourses of the nation. Heidenreich has written a history that reflects the coexisting and conflicting histories that underlay this nation’s historical background. Historians, students, and anyone else interested in colonial and contemporary Latin America will find this volume useful and rewarding.