Spanning the period between Spanish colonization and the early twentiethcentury this wellargued and convincing study examines the histories ofSpanish and Americ... » 

Spanning the period between Spanish colonization and the early twentiethcentury this wellargued and convincing study examines the histories ofSpanish and American conquests and of ethnicity race and community insouthern California. Lisbeth Haas draws on a diverse body of source materialsmission and court archives oral histories Spanish language plays census andtax records to build a new picture of rural society and social change.A borderlands and Chicano history Haass work provides a richly textured studyof events that took place in and around San Juan Capistrano and Santa Ana inpresentday Orange County. She provides a vivid sense of how and why the pastacquires meaning in the lives that make up the historical identities shediscusses. The voices of Juaneno and Luiseno Indians Californios and Mexicansare heard along the shifting faultlines of economic social and politicalchange.This is one of the first truly multiethnic histories of California and of theWest. It makes clear that issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity are notrecent manifestations in Californiathey have characterized social andcultural relationships there since the late eighteenth century. «