| Scholars in United States history have been writing on immigrant groups for more than a century. Experts who speak for Italians, Jews, Germans, Scandinavians, and others have won national reputations for their books on the newcomers. Ironically, the oldest immigrant people, the descendants of Spaniards and Indians, received almost no scholarly attention until the 1960s. Up to that time, no historian had written a book about the Mexicans and their descendants, and just a handful of popularizers and sociologists had taken note of them. Yet the six million Mexican Americans comprise the second largest ethnic minority in the United States today; in the Southwest, no minority group surpasses them in numbers. |
| A young generation of Mexican Americans shattered that indifference. Entering colleges and universities in increasing numbers and frequently joining the Chicano movement, which preaches the importance of self-awareness and pride in background, the new students demanded courses that explored their own history. In a few years, in response to these demands, hundreds of classes on Chicano history won the blessings of campus administrators eager to placate a vocal and significant group of Chicanos in Southwestern schools. |
| Unfortunately, courses on Chicano history confronted two formidable obstacles. Because of the almost total neglect of the Mexican American population by scholars, there were no specialists in the field. Most of the teachers of the new courses had no formal historical training. Further, given the absence of research, the new instructors had to collect their own materials and to rely on less than satisfactory texts. The pioneer pedagogue had to transform himself into a historian and simultaneously assemble sources for teaching an unexplored history. |
| David Weber's anthology, a collection of Spanish, Mexican, and American writings, represents a bold effort to develop systematically the documentary sources for Mexican American history. The anthology breaks new ground; no comparable documentary collection exists. The documents, personal testimonials by men who lived the history of the Southwest which the new Mexican Americans claim as their heritage, date from 1595, more than a decade before Englishmen |
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