River of Hope by Omar S Valerio-Jiménez sku-20748994

River of Hope by Omar S Valerio-Jiménez (sku-20748994) is a hardcover title in Latin American History Books. It examines state formation, cultural change, and identity in the lower Rio Grande during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Valerio-Jiménez describes violence under successive conquests, resistance and accommodation to state power, and shifting ethnic and political identities.

He argues that changing borders did not erase unequal power relations or give residents a single colonial or national identity. Regional ties, cross-border cultural practices, and kinship complicated attempts by Spain, Mexico, and the United States to control the region.

The book covers Indian slaves entering Spanish society, alliances between Mexicans and Indians to defend river communities, collaboration and intermarriage between Anglo Americans and Mexicans, and women seeking divorce and redress for spousal abuse.

It also follows Mexican nationals and tejanos who used cross-border relationships and ambiguous citizenship to avoid prosecution, seek refuge, and find economic opportunities. As their practices were racialized and increasingly criminalized, tejanos claimed U.S. citizenship rights and developed a new identity. Published in cooperation with the William P.

Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University.