Ilan Stavans - A Most Imperfect Union

MORE PRAISE FOR A MOST IMPERFECT UNION

True patriotism consists in wanting to make your country better, not in pretending that it is already perfect. In A Most Imperfect Union, Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz provide a warts-and-all take on US historywitty and pithy, creative and critical, subversive and constructive. By scanning the countrys virtues and vices in a single sweep, they will make readers love for America better informed; the book may also help to inspire young Americans to sustain the project of making the United States a model country in an increasingly plural hemisphere, an increasingly complex world, and an increasingly cynical age. Felipe Fernndez-Armesto, author of Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States Ilan Stavans and Lalo Alcaraz make a dynamic duo: spirited, energetic, sardonic, and irreverent. History is, after all, a story, and they are bravura storytellers, in words and pictures. They take issue, not only with the official story, but also with each other, demonstrating that the most essential element in the teaching of historyand the practice of democracyis critical thought.

Martn Espada, author of The Trouble BallMedia mestizaje at its finest. Alcaraz and Stavans present a tribute to America full of the binaries that make our country great: angry and loving, lyrical and scabrous, academic and street-smart. If you dont buy this book, you dont know modern-day America. Gustavo Arellano, Ask a Mexican! syndicated columnist Its often saidhalf jokinglythat every country has an unpredictable past. Our histories are unique and the stories we tell about them are often contradictory. Lalo Alcarazs dynamic, funny images and Ilan Stavanss clever commentaries offer a fresh, adventurous way of viewing the uncertain past of this amazing American nation.

Paquito DRivera, multiple Grammy Awardwinning musician and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master This dynamic duo has done it again. Wordsmith extraordinaire Stavans and virtuoso visual artist Alcaraz reveal the blind spots in our countrys magisterial epic and open our eyes to the nations real grand story, describing it less as a uniform and progressive history than as a symphony of creative destruction. This merciless, witty, and deeply learned book will arm us and our children with the know-how to create a better tomorrow. Frederick Luis Aldama, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, Ohio State University, and author of The Routledge Concise History of Latino/a Literature

For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107. Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail special.markets@perseusbooks.com. LCCN: 2014931305 ISBN: 978-0-465-03669-1 (hardcover) 978-0-465-08064-9 (e-book) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ALSO BY ILAN STAVANS FICTION The Disappearance The One-Handed Pianist and Other Stories NONFICTION The Riddle of Cantinflas Dictionary Days On Borrowed Words Spanglish The Hispanic Condition Art and Anger Resurrecting Hebrew A Critics Journey The Inveterate Dreamer Octavio Paz: A Meditation Imagining Columbus Bandido Lotera! (with Teresa Villegas) Jos Vasconcelos: The Prophet of Race Return to Centro Histrico Singers Typewriter and Mine The United States of Mestizo CONVERSATIONS Knowledge and Censorship (with Vernica Albin) What Is La Hispanidad? (with Ivn Jaksi) Ilan Stavans: Eight Conversations (with Neal Sokol) With All Thine Heart (with Mordecai Drache) Conversations with Ilan Stavans Love and Language (with Vernica Albin) Muy Pop! (with Frederick Luis Aldama) Thirteen Ways of Looking at Latino Art (with Jorge J. E.

Gracia) ANTHOLOGIES The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature Tropical Synagogues The Oxford Book of Latin American Essays The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature Lengua Fresca (with Harold Augenbraum) Wchale! The Scroll and the Cross The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories Mutual Impressions Growing Up Latino (with Harold Augenbraum) The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry CHILDRENS BOOKS Golemito (with Teresa Villegas) GRAPHIC NOVELS Mr. Spic Goes to Washington (with Roberto Weil) Once@9:53 (with Marcelo Brodsky) El Iluminado (with Steve Sheinkin) Latino USA: A Cartoon History (with Lalo Alcaraz) TRANSLATION Sentimental Songs, by Felipe Alfau The Plain in Flames, by Juan Rulfo (with Harold Augenbraum) The Underdogs (with Anna More) EDITIONS Spain, Take This Chalice from Me and Other Poems, by Csar Vallejo The Poetry of Pablo Neruda Encyclopedia Latina (Four Volumes) I Explain a Few Things, by Pablo Neruda Calvert Casey: The Collected Stories Collected Stories, by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Three Volumes) An Organizers Tale: Speeches, by Cesar Chavez Selected Writings, by Rubn Daro Latin Music (Two Volumes) All the Odes, by Pablo Neruda GENERAL The Essential Ilan Stavans ALSO BY LALO ALCARAZ Migra Mouse: Political Cartoons on Immigration La Cucaracha: The First Collection from the Daily Comic Strip TO LUIS LOYA,INVETERATE DREAMER.I. S.TO MI FAMILIA, AND ALL THE IMMIGRANTS IN THE WORLD.L. A.

CONTENTS

Columbus Sails the Ocean Blue Cabeza de Vaca: Oh, the Places Youll Go The Mayflower is Here! Pilgrims vs. Indians The Making of New York The Middle Passage Those Nasty Colonists Tea by the Bay The Original Superteam A Strong Constitution Jefferson, the Prophet John Loves Abigail Lets Have a Party or Two Where the Buffalo Roam American Book Club Lincoln Continental An Uncivil War The Gettysburg Address The Fall of a Hero Communicating with the Dead The Task of Reconstruction Progress for All! Wretched Refuse Schmendricks and Schmucks Down with Spain! The National Pastime The Rhythms of Jazz Vmonos con Pancho Villa! Doughboys on the March Bottoms up! The Great Depression The Good Neighbor Policy Our Kampf: The Fight against Hitler The Enemies Within Crossing the Border Nuclear Nightmare Israel Is Real Korea Splits Up The Cold War Heats Up The Sexual Thermometer Happy Families Are Alike! Civil Rights and Wrongs Good Morning, Vietnam The Watergate Flush Affirmative Action and Reaction The Iran Hostage Crisis Cowboy Ron Who Won the Election? Al-Qaeda Attacks The Information Superhighway Obama Aint Black Playing the Race Card

FOREWORD

PLASTIC NATION

PATRIOTISM IS CONSIDERED TO BE AN EMOTION A PERSON OUGHT TO FEEL. BUT WHY? WALLACE SHAWN am at once an unlikely American and an utterly typical one.

I moved to the United States from Mexico in the mid-1980s. This was not an accident but an act of will: I wanted to live in freedom, to debate ideas openly, to test the limits of my talents. Since then, the country has been good to me, and I like to think that I have been good to the country. Nonetheless, our relationship isnt idyllic. I often criticize the United States for those aspects of its culture and national character that make me uncomfortable: its insatiable appetite for pleasure, its plastic-surgery aesthetics, its love of consumption, its frequent ignorance of history, its xenophobic disposition, its condescending political correctness, its arrogant foreign policy. And I, in turn, usually find myself in the eye of the storm because of the critical stands I take.