My History, Not Yours

The Formation of Mexican American Autobiography

Author: Genaro M. Padilla
ISBN: 0299139743

    "I am willing to relate all I can remember, but I wish it clearly understood that it must be in my own way,  and at my own time.  I will not be hurried or dictated to.  It is my history and not yours I propose to tell.”—Mariano Guadelupe Vallejo, on “Recuerdos históricos y personales”  (1875)     My History, Not Yours is a landmark study of the autobiographical writings of Mexican Americans in the century following the US-Mexican War of 1846-1848.  Some 75,000 inhabitants of what is now Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were suddenly foreigners on their own lands.  Faced with the deliberate obliteration of their history, culture, language, and personal experiences, these women and men set down the stories of their lives and their communities, as a means of both remembering and resisting.     Genaro M. Padilla and other scholars have begun to uncover the huge store of literary materials forgotten in manuscript archives:  memoirs long out

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
Publish Date: 1993

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General, History / Latin America / Mexico, Literary Criticism / American / Hispanic American

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Raza Recource Centro (Location: Wall D, Shelf 1), Raza Recource Centro (Location: Wall D, Shelf 1)