The Tragedy that Transformed the Chicano Movement
In 1963, more than thirty Mexican guest workers died in a terrible accident in California. The fallout helped turn farmworkers’ rights into a national cause.
The Sovereignty of the Latter-day Saints
Less about morality than about rights, the Mormon War of 1858 hinged on the issue of polygamy, pitting a Utah community against federal authorities.
Island in the Potomac
Steps from Georgetown, a memorial to Teddy Roosevelt stands amid ghosts of previous inhabitants: the Nacotchtank, colonist enslavers, and the emancipated.
Ride ’em, Butteri!
Long before spaghetti westerns, Italians were turned on to an image of the American West by Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Genocide in California
The extermination campaigns against the Yuki people, sparked by the California Gold Rush and statehood, weren’t termed genocide until the mid 1970s.
The Triumphalism of American Wild West Shows
From the 1880s to the 1930s, hundreds of Wild West shows encouraged white audiences to view Native American culture as a rapidly vanishing curiosity.
Money and Activism: Mixed Messages
During the Cold War, philanthropic paternalism put Mexican American grassroots activists in the American Southwest at odds with East Coast funding institutions.
Pachuca Rebels in 1940s Los Angeles
Like their zoot suit-wearing male counterparts, young Mexican American women rebelled against white, mainstream culture through bold fashion choices.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Annotated
Signed February 2, 1848, the treaty compelled Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory, bringing more than 525,000 square miles under US sovereignty.
Plant of the Month: Hops
As the craft beer industry reckons with its oppressive past, it may be time to re-examine the complicated history (and present) of hops in the United States