Coyote Nation: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920 (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture)

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Coyote Nation: Sexuality, Race, and Conquest in Modernizing New Mexico, 1880-1920 (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture)

Author(s):

Pablo Mitchell

Label: University Of Chicago Press
Publisher(s):

University Of Chicago Press

Studio: University Of Chicago Press
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
Binding: Paperback
List Price: $22.00
Our Price: $22.00
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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

With the arrival of the transcontinental railroad in the 1880s came the emergence of a modern and profoundly multicultural New Mexico. Native Americans, working-class Mexicans, elite Hispanos, and black and white newcomers all commingled and interacted in the territory in ways that had not been previously possible. But what did it mean to be white in this multiethnic milieu? And how did ideas of sexuality and racial supremacy shape ideas of citizenry and determine who would govern the region?

Coyote Nation considers these questions as it explores how New Mexicans evaluated and categorized racial identities through bodily practices. Where ethnic groups were numerous and?in the wake of miscegenation?often difficult to discern, the ways one dressed, bathed, spoke, gestured, or even stood were largely instrumental in conveying one's race. Even such practices as cutting one's hair, shopping, drinking alcohol, or embalming a deceased loved one could inextricably link a person to a very specific racial identity.

A fascinating history of an extraordinarily plural and polyglot region, Coyote Nation will be of value to historians of race and ethnicity in American culture.

Customer Reviews

Coyote Ugly

In Coyote Nation Professor Mitchell struggles to make his case that in order to create a new racial order in New Mexico, colonists had to resort to racializing the intimate recesses of the human body. While it is easy to appreciate that the conquest of New Mexico might not have been as simple as more dichotomous regions, the arguments in Coyote Nation are tortured and repetitious to the point of fetishism. It may be true that New Mexico had the unique problem of having an established Hispanic elite, but it does not follow that we must perform a post mortem gynecological endoscopy to figure out what happened. Mitchell never makes a compelling case for the necessity to deconstruct every pimple, wart, and bunion on the frontier. Concentrating on the racial ephemera of every vaginal discharge, stool sample and cavity search, to the exclusion of a socio-economic analysis is to substitute a biopsy for an audit.

That is not to say that social history is not useful in learning about the past. But the social universe in New Mexico was a function of the racial, cultural and economic commonalities among European Americans whose pedigrees may have varied slightly but whose relationship to modernity is quite similar. The demographics and economic stratification were unique. While it may be useful to contrast the process of colonization in California and Texas with New Mexico and the contemporaneous imperialism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, Mitchell neglects to superimpose his analysis on these areas and thus he makes the undergraduate mistake of comparing apples to anuses.

No one can be astonished to learn that the dominant settlers had white, Northern European, Victorian sensibilities. It can hardly be surprising to discover people have been sexist, racist, paternalistic, clannish and yet able to compromise when their physical and financial well-being was at stake. Mitchell looks at trials, newspaper accounts and scholarship to support his project of corporeal colonization. But where else could racial and sexual discrimination be found? Regardless of how we assess the motives of the authors of the Dawes act, is it so far-fetched to think that the indoctrination at Native American boarding schools would include the removal of long hair? We could hardly be expected to Americanize, and modernize subordinate people by handing out Tomahawks and eagle feathers.

Many of Mitchell's examples hinge on the tactics of frontier lawyers, prosecuting and defending (often marginalized) persons against the hyperventilated backdrop of rape cases. To grant elevated status to legal histrionics, exclusively in the area of bodily comportment, ignores the circumstances and constraints of desperate courtroom battle.

Sexuality, gender politics and racial stratification are invaluable axes to focus cultural analysis. And while it's fascinating to have learned that the age of consent to New Mexico went from to age 10 to age 14 and that not all Mexicans were alike, there was little else to recommend Mitchell's soft porn theory of history.

Thought provoking & well done

This was a really great read - well researched, well written, and very thought provoking. Even if you are only generally interested in the history of race and ethnicity, this slice of New Mexican history will fascinate you. And for those of you with an interest in the Southwest, this will be a particularly good read.

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